Hi guys I have a question that I’m hoping someone can answer. My girlfriend has a German bank account and I was wondering if it’s possible that she could transfer euros into my monzo account. Thanks for the help
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She can use Transferwise. 
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Thank you I’ve never used it before but will tell her to give it a try
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I’ve used it the other way (Monzo to EU bank account) and it works well. She will be able to make a local transfer in 
to TransferWise’s European IBAN, and they will make a local transfer to your Monzo account in 
. TransferWise will charge a reasonable fee for the currency conversion, but exchange at the interbank rate. It’s a smooth process and good value.
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The sender can also pay by card which is instant (so they will do the transfer right away and given UK Faster Payments are also instant it will arrive quickly), where as if the sender does an IBAN transfer then you also have to wait for that to clear before receiving your money in the UK.
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I wasn’t sure how fast IBAN transfers normally are. Going from GBP to EUR, I make a Faster Payment from Monzo and TransferWise receive it instantly so I was hoping something similar would work with IBAN, but maybe not.
I don’t know how fast SEPA is, I think it takes one working day by default (vs usually instant but up to 24 hours for Faster Payments).
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The interesting thing here is that proper SEPA transfers from German to English bank accounts are usually fee free, while Transferwise charges a fee (albeit a fairly small one). Thus, you will most likely loose some money when using Transferwise in this direction.
(This is contrary to a transfer from UK to Germany, where most English banks do charge a fairly high fee, and you therefore usually save money by using Transferwise.)
My advice: If this isn’t a one off thing (i.e. you expect regular payments from abroad, particularly from the Eurozone) get a 2nd bank account that accepts incoming SEPA payment (Barclays has consistently given me very good conversion rates), or a Revolut account.
But what exchange rate does the receiving UK bank use to convert the euros to pounds? This could add up to quite a bit more than TransferWise’s fee, as TransferWise use the interbank rate. Not saying your advice isn’t good, but it’s important to check what exchange rate you’re getting from the receiving bank.
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In my experience usually within a very tiny fraction of the rate advertised on xe.com.
I have just checked a fairly large payment I received last year against the historic exchange rate, and barclays actually used exactly the same rate that xe.com advertised for that day. (Although I also know that for some other payments in the past it had been ever so slightly different, which I always put down to rate fluctuations, rather than deliberate actions, without having any proof for that.)
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As another data point, I just checked with Nationwide what their incoming exchange rate for euros to pounds conversion is, and they seem to apply a 2% markup to the interbank rate (though, as with Barclays, there is no fee for receiving a SEPA credit). They will use a rate of 1.1582 today for incoming euro credits, whereas Oanda currently lists the interbank rate for selling euros for pounds as 1.13475.
I only need to receive a small amount of money, so this will cost me 9p, so clearly worth it in this case. But for a larger amount, TransferWise (or another receiving bank!) would make sense. I think the main lesson is to check what exchange rate your bank will apply to incoming SEPA credits before receiving large amounts.
Good to know!
If you are interested: SEPA rules state that the receiving bank must not deduct a fee (thus the UK banks cannot explicitly charge for it). They further state that an international SEPA payment must be treated the same as a domestic one. In Germany (and I believe almost all other SEPA countries) all eligible transfers (including domestic ones) are now handled by SEPA, and SEPA transfers are generally free for the sender as well (otherwise there’d be a charge for domestic bank transfers). Thus the completely fee-free nature of SEPA transfers when transferring from Germany (and most other SEPA countries) to the UK. However, SEPA rules say nothing about exchange rates (as they are really crafted with the Euro in mind). Some non-Euro SEPA countries have separate rules in place that essentially say that the receiving bank must not apply a markup in SEPA transfers (Denmark, I believe has done so), making receipt of SEPA transfers “really free”, but of course we don’t want any EU meddling in this United Kingdom, so we give the banks the freedom to apply their own exchange rate as they see fit.
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Hi there, I know I’m late to the party but thought I would add my experience. I have both a Monzo account and a German Account.
TransferWise is what I normally use. It’s super fast, normally takes minutes, direct with the banks normally takes around 5-7 days.
The app is pretty nice to use too and fairly straightforward. You can also save account details if it’s something you will be doing on a regular basis. The currency exchange rate is pretty awesome too.
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Thanks for all your help guys. We ended up using transferwise and it cost €3.40 to transfer €684.00 and it took less than 24 hours for the money to be in my account. Not a bad result, once again thanks guys
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