Difficulty with remitting money abroad (not using credit card)

[Calthrop]

A recent frustrating and exasperating experience of mine -- as per my thread title -- has prompted this post: am wondering whether anyone else has found themself in a similar predicament in similar circumstances; also, whether knowledgeable folk might be able to reveal to me why something seemingly nonsensical, in fact makes some sense.

I wished to purchase a item offered for sale by a vendor in a continental country (in Western Europe, in the EU, generally reckoned a thoroughly advanced and stable place). For reasons which it is unnecessary to embroil this post in, I was not in a position to make this payment using my credit card. I got in e-mail touch with the vendor: they were in principle willing to take my payment -- a modest number of euros -- by a transfer of money from my bank, to theirs. They furnished me with the, as it were, "streamlined, coded" (I don't know the banking technical terms) identifying information for their bank branch. I went to the local branch of my bank (Lloyds), and requested transferring of the sum concerned, from my account, to that of the vendor: the details as above, of which, I showed to them.

I was then told that the transaction which I wished to make, could not be made without my furnishing to my branch, the full postal addresses both of my "vendor" whom I wished to pay; and of their branch of their bank. A repeat visit to my branch -- armed now with my vendor's postal address -- to find out whether it could really be so vitally necessary to have the postal address of the bank branch "at the other end", and a conversation with a different employee, revealed that they were totally adamant that they had to have the postal address of the bank branch abroad.

To clarify, if needed: an example here, culled from fiction / fantasy. We'll say that I was trying to buy a book from a supplier in Ruritania. The bank's "coded" as I'll call it, details -- including the name of their client who I was trying to pay -- were approximately thus:

Rassendylls Bank H/L (Swift) code RASDL4Y
DCBA code RUR17RASD 5432112345
Customer: Bucherhandlung Anton Hoffnung Strelsau

Modelled on the "customer" 's (my vendor's) postal address, which as recounted above, I had: I take it that my bank required their bank branch's postal address -- which I figure would be on the lines of

Rassendylls Bank
Rupert-von-Hentzau-Strasse 16
1234 ZR Strelsau
RURITANIA

I e-mailed the vendor, trying to explain the situation, and requesting them to furnish me with the postal address of their bank branch. I did not hear from them again: inference drawn from this, is that they had concluded that I appeared to be funny in the head; or at least too much of a nuisance, with too little money to be potentially made from me, to be worth wasting any more time on. I ended up feeling that I had lost out in all ways: I couldn't get the desired book; and seemed to be regarded as a fool, by everyone concerned in the business. The two bank employees with whom I spoke on my respective two visits to the branch: were, I felt, borderline rude to me over this matter -- in my perception, strongly implying that one would have to be a total moron not to see it as clear-as-day obvious, that to make such a money transfer as I wished to do, the actioning bank requires, no-ifs-or-buts, the full postal address of both the payee, and of the payee's branch of the appropriate bank: any imagined alternative to this procedure, is both disallowed, and ridiculous even to suggest.

Would be interested to hear if anyone else here, has come up against this -- in my perception -- strange phenomenon. I wonder, do all or most of Britain's banks apply this rule, in such cases, with the same vigour and inflexibility -- or might it be a peculiarity of Lloyds? Is there in fact some strong practical / functional reason -- obscure to me in my ignorance -- for it to be so utterly imperative for the postal addresses of the payee, and their bank, to be there for the payer to furnish? Or (being cynical) are banks trying their hardest -- by making the thing as difficult and unpleasant as they can -- to kill off such transactions, for petty amounts on the part of ordinary individual account-holders -- "persons of no importance" -- because processing such transactions is, to the banks, unprofitable and time-wasting and an annoyance? -- let the proles use credit cards, or else let them refrain from trying to make payments to parties abroad?

As Private Eye has been wont to put it: enquiring minds would be glad to know...

 

[Senex]

A long time ago now I worked for a year in Germany and duly had a German bank account. I've kept it, and kept a small amount of money in it, ever since simply because it's so much easier and cheaper to pay for purchases not only in Germany but also in most of the rest of Europe from that account than from a British account (and certainly significantly chepaer than with a credit card). Whereas the mainland European system seems to be set up to make life as easy as possible for the customer and encourage people not to be afraid of cross-border purchases, the British system seems to be created to be insular and difficult and (like so many business things we have to deal with in the country) to be rip-off expensive. The three-line version you cite above give all the information needed to make a payment, and by internet banking it can be done from one's own PC. But not with an account with a British bank ...

 

[jfollows]

I don't know if this is helpful, or answers your question in any way, but I use Transferwise (https://transferwise.com) which enables me to make a payment in Euros to a recipient using their International Bank Account Number (IBAN). The payment is very fast and cheap. I use it to pay a retailer in Germany which does not accept credit card payments - which is apparently much more commonly the case than it is for UK retailers.

EDIT: Transferwise also enables SWIFT payments, if you can't use IBAN. A little slower I think.

I don't go anywhere near my UK bank for these sorts of transfers, NatWest in my case. Expensive and a rip-off. Other than to make the payment in £ to Transferwise as directed, which gets converted into a precise € amount and paid to the recipient.

EDIT: Reading your original post again - Transferwise never required me to do anything like Lloyds wanted you to do with recipient postal address etc. I think Lloyds (and the other UK banks) are stuck in a time-warp in which making payments in a foreign currency is unusual and suspicious and needs to be verified, or something like. Others, not just Transferwise of course, just understand that it's a normal transaction and supply you with the means by which you can instruct them clearly, then carry our your instructions.

 

[jfollows]

I have been transferring money between £, $ and € since 1989, and my experience is that high-street banks make the process difficult, slow and unnecessarily expensive. I think they do want the business, because historically they were a monopoly cartel in which they all ripped you off for the same amount, and it was profitable for them to do so.

In 1989 there was little alternative, and was at a time that 59 US cents a minute was considered a good price for an international telephone call.

They also provide poor training to their staff - I have twice paid in a US $ cheque (check) into my UK account but fortunately only on the second occasion was I told that I couldn't do it, which clearly I could given my previous experience. However this is also an expensive process, but I had my reasons for doing it on this occasion.

Transferwise, and others, have spotted the gap in the market - they can offer a significantly better service at a significantly lower price, and offer more than simply a means to transfer money, but that'd be getting too far away from your question, I simply suggest that you look into what can be offered away from Lloyds and be pleasantly surprised.

 

[jfollows]

To make a payment in € to an account using its IBAN with Transferwise (I have no experience with SWIFT), you set up the payment through them and tell them how you want to pay. Assuming you want to pay in £, they quote you back a precise £ amount and a reference number, and guarantee the amount for a short period (day or so). You then make payment in £ to their UK account within the time frame quoting the reference number, and it's not long before you receive confirmation that the payment has been made.

 

[najaB]

Would be interested to hear if anyone else here, has come up against this -- in my perception -- strange phenomenon. I wonder, do all or most of Britain's banks apply this rule, in such cases, with the same vigour and inflexibility -- or might it be a peculiarity of Lloyds?

No, it's not a pecularity of Lloyds, nor of UK banks. I recently had to transfer money from an insurance company back home to my account in the UK and the bank there also required both my bank account details and the address of my bank branch.

 

[jfollows]

Wikipedia implies that in the absence of IBAN, the identification of accounts using other information such as SWIFT can be problematic, and therefore this may be the reason banks are asking for additional information to verify/validate the accuracy of the recipient bank. This may not be unreasonable.

International Bank Account Number - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Before IBAN, differing national standards for bank account identification (i.e. bank, branch, routing codes, and account number) were confusing for some users. This often led to necessary routing information being missing from payments. Routing information as specified by ISO 9362 (also known as Business Identifier Codes (BIC code), SWIFT ID or SWIFT code, and SWIFT-BIC) does not require a specific format for the transaction so the identification of accounts and transaction types is left to agreements of the transaction partners. It also does not contain check digits, so errors of transcription were not detectable and it was not possible for a sending bank to validate the routing information prior to submitting the payment. Routing errors caused delayed payments and incurred extra costs to the sending and receiving banks and often to intermediate routing banks.

 

[[.n]]

I use Transferwise as well (but integrated into my Monzo account). I have noticed that depending on what country the payment is being made to, differing amounts of information are required, including bank branch address, recipient address etc. I've put it down to different banking laws in those countries.

 

[S&CLER]

I have been transferring money between £, $ and € since 1989, and my experience is that high-street banks make the process difficult, slow and unnecessarily expensive. I think they do want the business, because historically they were a monopoly cartel in which they all ripped you off for the same amount, and it was profitable for them to do so.

In 1989 there was little alternative, and was at a time that 59 US cents a minute was considered a good price for an international telephone call.

They also provide poor training to their staff - I have twice paid in a US $ cheque (check) into my UK account but fortunately only on the second occasion was I told that I couldn't do it, which clearly I could given my previous experience. However this is also an expensive process, but I had my reasons for doing it on this occasion.

Transferwise, and others, have spotted the gap in the market - they can offer a significantly better service at a significantly lower price, and offer more than simply a means to transfer money, but that'd be getting too far away from your question, I simply suggest that you look into what can be offered away from Lloyds and be pleasantly surprised.

A few weeks ago I received a royalty cheque in US dollars drawn on a New York bank from a Canadian university press for my paltry one-fifth share (1 per cent) of the royalties on an academic book I translated. It is for $29.29, so not worth paying in; the royalties for the first year of publication were more substantial, but HSBC still charged nearly £20 for collecting the cheque. There must be a better way, so I may email the royalties administration to ask about alternatives.

 

[jfollows]

There must be a better way, so I may email the royalties administration to ask about alternatives.

Transferwise, and presumably other companies, offer the option of a local bank account. So I have a US bank account number and a Euro bank account number, both of which can be used to pay in local currencies. They may also offer a Canadian $ account. If so, you could arrange for your royalties to be paid into this account. You will then have a balance in Canadian $ which you can transfer to a different currency such as £, there is a fee for this, but I bet it's loads less than HSBC's fee.

EDIT: Apologies, you said you are paid in US $, and for sure there's an option of a US $ account because I have one myself.

Unfortunately my account post-dates my US $ cheque experience, or else I'd have used it then. I did some work for the National Science Foundation and the cheque (check) was large and impressive and said "US Treasury" on it but it was still a big pain to pay it in to my UK account.

 

[CrispyUK]

It would probably be easier to advise you whether this was normal if you just stated the actual country you were trying to make the payment to, rather than constructing an elaborate set of fictional details by way of an example. If the SWIFT code you have is in the same format , then it’s not valid, as it should be 8 or 11 characters, which may explain why your bank need an address.

If you have a valid format SWIFT/BIC for the recipients bank, then it may just be a validation check that Lloyds have in place as part of their standard process for these payments to make sure everything matches up before they initiate the transfer. Most UK customers will be, as you are, unfamiliar with making international payments in this way and may not recognise the correct formats or mangle them to fit how they think they should look, so extra checks up front reduce the chance of hassle later on when a payment goes AWOL. SWIFT transfers often pass through multiple banks on the way, all applying their own charges so it wouldn’t surprise me if mistakes are difficult and/or costly to fix.

Again, assuming you have the correct IBAN/SWIFT/BIC details, just use these to look up the branch address and give that to your bank.

 

[Harpers Tate]

.....and certainly significantly chepaer than with a credit card....

Acknowledging that this is way off-topic (especially since the OP's stated inability to use one) I have to correct that.
The credit card I use for any currency transactions:
a) works the exchange at the wholesale (city) rate ruling at the time the transation is posted*.
b) adds no "turn" nor commission to the exchange AND
c) gives me 0.5% cashback on all my transactions.
d) with no monthly nor annual fees, nor any interest charged as long as the account is settled in full when due (it is)
I struggle to see how that might be bettered.

==============================
* Clearly that varies but as any market shifts are wholly unpredictable it's impossible to compare this with (for example) placing a deposit into a currency account at a different time (when you think the rate is "good") and using it later. It's totally pot luck as to whether that is better than the spot rate on the day. You may come out ahead, you may not. Hence - ignored as a factor.

 

[Senex]

Acknowledging that this is way off-topic (especially since the OP's stated inability to use one) I have to correct that.
The credit card I use for any currency transactions:
a) works the exchange at the wholesale (city) rate ruling at the time the transation is posted*.
b) adds no "turn" nor commission to the exchange AND
c) gives me 0.5% cashback on all my transactions.
d) with no monthly nor annual fees, nor any interest charged as long as the account is settled in full when due (it is)
I struggle to see how that might be bettered.

==============================
* Clearly that varies but as any market shifts are wholly unpredictable it's impossible to compare this with (for example) placing a deposit into a currency account at a different time (when you think the rate is "good") and using it later. It's totally pot luck as to whether that is better than the spot rate on the day. You may come out ahead, you may not. Hence - ignored as a factor.

So which one is that then? It sounds good. Mine is the one I get from my bank (TSB). I know it's not a particularly impressive bank, but I don't think it's that much different from the other high-street banks.

 

[Calthrop]

Thanks, all, for input. Am about to be away from computer for some hours; all being well -- plan a response, in detail, later today.

 

[Harpers Tate]

So which one is that then?

MBNA Horizon. The 0.5% cashback is a rare addition to otherwise "fee-free" offerings and may not be available for new applications. But totally "fee-free" (including for ForEx) credit cards are available from, among others:
Halifax (Clarity)
Post Office (Travel Card)
etc.

 

[PeterC]

The trouble with banks now is the deskilling of branch staff. You can no longer get an issue sorted at the counter.

As the treasurer of a club account and our branch won't even look at change of signature requests, it all goes to a central processing centre to be delayed for weeks or lost altogether.

 

[jfollows]

==============================
* Clearly that varies but as any market shifts are wholly unpredictable it's impossible to compare this with (for example) placing a deposit into a currency account at a different time (when you think the rate is "good") and using it later. It's totally pot luck as to whether that is better than the spot rate on the day. You may come out ahead, you may not. Hence - ignored as a factor.

I'm not disagreeing with you fundamentally, and I know this is now off-topic, apologies for that. I wouldn't categorise this a totally "pot luck"; I decided in 2019 that £1 = €1.16 was a good exchange rate and bought Euros at this rate or better, culminating with £1 = €1.20 just after the election. Today I see I'll get £1 = €1.11, so the purchase that I made using my Euros yesterday at the exchange rate I bought them at is a better deal. But my strategy requires some luck, some knowledge, and some spare cash.

 

[najaB]

But my strategy requires some luck, some knowledge, and some spare cash.

I believe that discussion of Forex speculation strategy is somewhat off topic for the thread. And anyone reading this is well advised that most investors lose money when trading in foreign exchange.

 

[Calthrop]

I don't know if this is helpful, or answers your question in any way, but I use Transferwise (https://transferwise.com) which enables me to make a payment in Euros to a recipient using their International Bank Account Number (IBAN). The payment is very fast and cheap. I use it to pay a retailer in Germany which does not accept credit card payments - which is apparently much more commonly the case than it is for UK retailers.

EDIT: Transferwise also enables SWIFT payments, if you can't use IBAN. A little slower I think.

Thanks; also to @[.n], for recommending Transferwise; hitherto unknown to me. Should I be in a situation of this kind again, I'll look into that outfit, for the purpose.

Transferwise never required me to do anything like Lloyds wanted you to do with recipient postal address etc. I think Lloyds (and the other UK banks) are stuck in a time-warp in which making payments in a foreign currency is unusual and suspicious and needs to be verified, or something like. Others, not just Transferwise of course, just understand that it's a normal transaction and supply you with the means by which you can instruct them clearly, then carry our your instructions.

No, it's not a pecularity of Lloyds, nor of UK banks. I recently had to transfer money from an insurance company back home to my account in the UK and the bank there also required both my bank account details and the address of my bank branch.

Two opposing opinions -- having me feeling, a little, "I pays my money and I takes my choice ..."

It would probably be easier to advise you whether this was normal if you just stated the actual country you were trying to make the payment to, rather than constructing an elaborate set of fictional details by way of an example. If the SWIFT code you have is in the same format , then it’s not valid, as it should be 8 or 11 characters, which may explain why your bank need an address.

If you have a valid format SWIFT/BIC for the recipients bank, then it may just be a validation check that Lloyds have in place as part of their standard process for these payments to make sure everything matches up before they initiate the transfer. Most UK customers will be, as you are, unfamiliar with making international payments in this way and may not recognise the correct formats or mangle them to fit how they think they should look, so extra checks up front reduce the chance of hassle later on when a payment goes AWOL. SWIFT transfers often pass through multiple banks on the way, all applying their own charges so it wouldn’t surprise me if mistakes are difficult and/or costly to fix.

Again, assuming you have the correct IBAN/SWIFT/BIC details, just use these to look up the branch address and give that to your bank.

I'm an ignoramus and babe-in-the-woods about "banking stuff": pre-this thread, I thought that IBAN meant a picturesque people who live in Sarawak; and SWIFT code, a means of communicating with members of that hirundine bird species which spends little time on terra firma... I couched things in terms of "Ruritanian" nonsense, from a slight anxiety (probably ridiculous) re statistically way-out scenarios of my giving the actual details concerned, resulting in embarrassment or worse for the undertaking from which I tried to make the purchase. The country concerned was actually the Netherlands: my contact's bank info as furnished to me, indeed had an 8-character SWIFT code -- I gave my fictitious SWIFT code seven characters, because of (as above) my knowing exactly zilch about these matters.

I gave to my bank, the correct IBAN/SWIFT details from my contact: that cut no ice with them -- their attitude was that the details might be as correct as all get-out, but were no use to them as those details stood: they imperatively had to have the postal address of the relevant bank branch in the Netherlands. As recounted in my OP: there had already been a bit of e-mailing to-and-fro between me and the people in the Netherlands from whom I had been trying to make the purchase -- I e-mailed them again, asking them to give the postal address of their bank branch: I got no reply, then or thereafter. (This would seem to suggest that even if in Britain it's indeed reckoned universally known, and perfectly sensible and reasonable, that banks will require the bank abroad's postal address; the people "abroad" neither know that, nor think it sensible or reasonable.)

The trouble with banks now is the deskilling of branch staff. You can no longer get an issue sorted at the counter.

As the treasurer of a club account and our branch won't even look at change of signature requests, it all goes to a central processing centre to be delayed for weeks or lost altogether.

And mention by @jfollows re banks and "poor training to their staff", with his experience of being erroneously told that he could not pay US $ cheques into his UK bank account.

The thing about the whole episode which has rankled most with me, is the attitude displayed by the two separate, lowish-level, employees at my Lloyds branch, with whom I dealt concerning this matter (normally, by the way, I find staff there very pleasant and helpful); as mentioned in my OP, I felt this pair's attitude and wording toward me, to be verging on rude -- implying that I must be an imbecile for not knowing that; and for expressing puzzlement as to why; to implement a payment abroad, they "obviously" needed the postal address of the foreign bank branch concerned. Am trying to exercise charity, and to think "people having bad days", "stress from having to marshal customers a propos social distancing", etc.; or might there be some strange property of this branch-abroad's-postal-address-needed issue, which causes it to act as a trigger to turn normally nice people into shrews and termagants ...?

I believe that discussion of Forex speculation strategy is somewhat off topic for the thread. And anyone reading this is well advised that most investors lose money when trading in foreign exchange.

As far as "off topic" goes -- no problem therewith, for me as OP; I suspect that I am in my own right, one of RailUKForums' more-prone-to-going-off-topic posters.

 

[PeterC]

re banks and "poor training to their staff", with his experience of being erroneously told that he could not pay US $ cheques into his UK bank account.

It isn['t just poor training, it is deliberate de-skilling.

 

[najaB]

It isn['t just poor training, it is deliberate de-skilling.

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. If there is a task that is performed 20 times per day in a branch, then it is worth investing the time to have all/several staff members per branch trained to perform it. If, over time, the frequency of that task drops such that its only performed a few times per month per branch, then a) training all/several people to perform the task is a waste of time; and b) the fact that a given staff member might go months between times that they need to perform it means that they'll likely have forgotten the procedure and increases the likelihood that they'll get it wrong.

So it makes sense to have only a few people trained to do it - who might be staff at the larger, city-centre branches or the contact centre rather than your local branch.

As an example, I used to quite frequently send money using Moneygram. If I went to the post office to do it, the staff there generally knew how to do it and could process it pretty quickly. If I went to Tesco instead, while the staff there had all been trained to do it they would quite commonly say things like "I've not done one of these in ages/since training". More than once I would had to talk them through the process!

 

[_toommm_]

I believe that discussion of Forex speculation strategy is somewhat off topic for the thread. And anyone reading this is well advised that most investors lose money when trading in foreign exchange.

Very off-topic, but is there a discussion thread anywhere on this forum of something like that?