Hi all - My wife has been doing some work contracting for an overseas firm on a self employed basis (she does not have a ltd company). She is invoicing the company around $5k USD and will receive the payment to a UK bank account. Her main account is Lloyds, but I assume Lloyds will charge a fee for receiving a USD payment? Will it make more sense to get the money sent to Starling or Wise and then move to Lloyds once it’s in GBP? Thanks for any feedback
Have a look at what the fees are for Lloyds, Starling and Wise? And pick the cheapest?
Or am I missing something?
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How do I know the fees at Lloyds for receiving a payment? I can’t see that anywhere.
There’s a flat fee for receiving a foreign currency transfer, and the exchange rate Lloyds will use won’t be the ‘true’ exchange rate for the day as it will include a margin for them.
You can find out what the exchange rate might be by phoning them or visiting your local branch.
If you call your bank they’ll tell you
Usually Wise is the cheapest option. Whether it’s worth setting up for one payment is a valid question, but if the work is likely to be repeated / there’s other contract work abroad on the horizon I’d probably do that.
Starling offer a USD account for business customers I believe. Not a clue what the conversion would be other way round. Probs still Mastercard.
Thanks all for your guidance
Revolut Pro might also be an idea.
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Wise
Just bringing this thread back up again.
Every few months I need to receive some USD due to RSUs vesting.
In the past I’ve received the money into my Wise account and then had them convert it to GBP.
I’m wondering if this is the most efficient way and if any others here have experience receiving USD?
I was looking into the alternative of using a HSBC Currency Account, they charge a flat 7 USD fee to receive money, and no fee for sending money to another HSBC account, which in theory is much cheaper for larger amounts of USD. Problem is they convert to other currencies at the HSBC Exchange Rate, which I haven’t been able to find examples of so far.
Are there better ways to do this or should I just accept the fact that I’m going to lose a good chunk going via Wise? I feel like this is still the case.
You’ll always lose some money in the exchange.
Do Revolut offer this at a cheaper rate?