efficient bank transfers to O/S

[loki]

i have a client who pays me in GBP each month to my euros account here in spain.  he pays all his costs and me, mine. i have a deal with my bank here where they charge me around €2.50 on a transfer of GBP600-1000, but they give me a crappy exchange rate on the day.
 
my client uses lloyds and i'm not sure what fees he has to pay. they take around a week to transmit which is extraordinary, but that is yet another way the bank makes a buck...
 
does anyone know of a decent service that i could look at?
 
thanks.

[Business Brian]

I know exactly what you mean - I just got my AdSense cheques sent through HSBC, and they have added an extra 10 cents to the exchange rate at the time (1.86, instead of 1.76 to the GBP). With bank charges on top, this can take a quiet significant  amount of money from earnings. I can't wait for Google to be able to just transfer monies direct to banks, or even PayPal accounts, if required.
 
 As for currencies - I'm not sure about Euros, but I know that Barclays Bank offers dollar accounts - ie, bank accounts that work specifically in that currency - ie, USD.  It certainly might be worth finding out if any banks near you offer accounts that work with specific currencies. I strongly suspect that you may find you are less penalised in terms of currency conversion charges, and I would recommend it's something you certainly look into. The larger downside is that with the BArclays USD account, you need to start it off with a few thousand dollars first, and I have no intention of tying up capital like that.
 
 Anyway, let me know how it goes.

[loki]

cheers.
 
i did see a site http://www.currenciesdirect.com/ that looked interesting although i wrote to them yesterday and no reply.
 
not a great start.

[Business Brian]

I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the company - but 48 hours for a reply isn't too long to wait. If in doubt, resend the e-mail, double-checking the actual e-mail address. I actually sent an e-mail to Worldpay this week, but figured something was up when I didn't receive an autoresponse within 24 hours, so  I resent and got an answer in 8.
 
 Does currenciesdirect offer a good general deal on Euros?