Receiving and spending Euro / Euro currency business account

[xchaotic]

Hi.

The payment to my UK Ltd will be in Euro.
I will have some Euro expenses as well (but not all).

Therefore I am looking to open a business account that would be most efficient at dealing with Euros, that is:
1. Sending Euros across EU as payment at low or no cost.
2. Exchanging to UK Pounds at a competitive rate.

Do banks differ much with this, what solution are you using?

[SueEllen]

All Business banks will do you a Euro currency account but there is absolutely no way they will do cheap currency transactions as that's how they make money.

You should look into using a foreign exchange dealer to send and receive money.

[Wanderer]

All Business banks will do you a Euro currency account but there is absolutely no way they will do cheap currency transactions as that's how they make money.

Reserve Account - Business Banking - Cater Allen Private Bank

"Gives you the ability to move money between Reserve Accounts without incurring any currency conversion charges"

I take that to mean that they give you the interbank rate.

[Wanderer]

I take that to mean that they give you the interbank rate.

Looking at the rates, it looks like they charge about 1% commission on the exchange....

[tharris]

check the wiki

There is a wiki page listing FX fees for several banks:

Foreign Exchange fees on bank cards and credit cards - Personal Finance

Although most of the cards on that wiki page are for US cards, there is one listing British credit card that has a 0% markup on foreign exchange (issued by Santandar). With that card, you can at least spend GBP for free.

As far as going the other direction, you are probably SOL. There are no euro-denominated cards that have no exchange fee, AFAIK.

[xchaotic]

Thanks, all very helpful, but still not exactly what I'm after, I think...
What I want is a UK based _business_ Euro account (Cater Allen might be just what I'm after).
Having euros loaded into that one, I would then like to send Euros to foreign euro accounts.
If there are no cheap options indeed, I will then use a foreign account, load that up and send money from there.

I was quite surprised, but a chap from Austria, has a personal bank account that gives him free bank transfers to anywhere in the Euro/IBAN zone....

[doodab]

I was quite surprised, but a chap from Austria, has a personal bank account that gives him free bank transfers to anywhere in the Euro/IBAN zone....

I am with a German bank & I get the same deal. There is a monthly account fee but it's waived as long as you have enough money coming in each month and/or enough money in there.

To convert between € and £ I use Foreign Exchange Transfers With UK Forex | UK Forex Foreign Exchange. The rates are usually within 1% of the quoted interbank rate, and there are no fees for amounts over £3000.

[xchaotic]

I had lengthy conversations with numerous banks right now and they all charge similar amounts for a single euro bank transfer - that is over £30 for a single transfer.
In my view that is completely ridonkeylous if say I'm paying from translating a single page of text (let's say 10 euro) or a similar small service, which I think I will be doing a lot...

Fortunately it seems you can withdraw the money or simply pay with a debit card linked to that account, this is limited in usefulness but still better than 30 quid each time...

[Ignis Fatuus]

I had lengthy conversations with numerous banks right now and they all charge similar amounts for a single euro bank transfer - that is over £30 for a single transfer.
In my view that is completely ridonkeylous if say I'm paying from translating a single page of text (let's say 10 euro) or a similar small service, which I think I will be doing a lot...

Fortunately it seems you can withdraw the money or simply pay with a debit card linked to that account, this is limited in usefulness but still better than 30 quid each time...

There are cheaper Euro transfers: Cooperative Bank only charges £8 on my personal account. ISTR that HSBC didn't charge too much (was it £12?) on my business account on the "slower" transfer option, but it's not something I do often so I can't recall.

[Moscow Mule]

I think Citibank used to do such an account, but I'm not sure of the costs or if they still do.

Trouble is, to send money to another country you generally need to send a SWIFT message, and UK banks like to charge for that.

However, Citi are everywhere so they can normally do a "local" transfer.