Paphos Life

'Expats living in the European Union who move money between UK banks and local accounts are being hit with hefty charges because of Brexit.

Now that EU banking payment rules no longer apply, there is no limit on charges for receiving money from UK accounts, or sending it to them. The Spanish giant Sabadell, and the Italian bank Unicredit were among the first to take advantage of this'.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/mone ... UUO6GO0QIU

Unable to read the full article as I am not a subscriber but interested to read if anyone has had extra charges imposed when sending money to their Cyprus bank account from the UK since the beginning of the year.

So if one uses a currency exchange company to move money from UK to Cyprus would this make a difference to the bank charges?
What about those of us senior citizens who receive UK Govt pensions will these be affected?

Dee

I use a Revolut card... great exchange rate ,easy to transfer money to and fro...

Just been checking a couple of banks and a few interesting points:

Alpha Bank has been charging €2 per transaction when a currency exchange company is used for some years if the amount is above €2000.

Hellenic charges €15 if the sum is above €15,000 from 2nd February from a non SEPA country, a category I think the UK now falls into. From a SEPA country the fee would be €10.

I would anticipate institutions such as Transferwise, Currency Fair etc would also come under the umbrella of 'banks' as it is all about transferring money from the UK to the EU.

Transferwise is the way to go. This from their website:
"The only change is behind the scenes. Starting 14 December 2020, we’ll serve customers in the European Economic Area (EEA) from our new office in Brussels. We’ll be licensed and regulated by the National Bank of Belgium."

I have my occupational pension paid direct into Transferwise and transfer amounts into Hellenic as and when. Therefore, I don't foresee any increase in charges.

Just been doing some more checking:

Currency Fair has its HQ in Dublin so they are also an EU country and would not be affected.

However, Currency Solutions which is another popular method of transferring funds is in London.

I just received an email from Transferwise saying that, from 25 Jan, they will charge 0.4% p.a. on Euro balances over Euro 15,000. Did anyone else get this email?