Foreign Exchange

Armin_Tamzarian

Is there any way of transferring Dollar to Euro at, or close to, the real exchange rate? i.e. not the buy rate.
I don't want cash, I just want to lodge it to an account.

Jet Black

Not really. Unless you know someone looking for dollars and sell it to them at the spot or know someone working at a Bank.
If you have a large amount the Bank might do a deal.

Good time to change at the moment. The rate has been bad the last few months.

Armin_Tamzarian

Jet Black wrote: »

Not really. Unless you know someone looking for dollars and sell it to them at the spot or know someone working at a Bank.
If you have a large amount the Bank might do a deal.

Good time to change at the moment. The rate has been bad the last few months.

I heard someone in a similar situation talking about treasury rates before but I don't know much about it.
In fact, I know nothing about it.

coylemj

If it isn't a huge amount, go to your branch with your ATM card, hand over the dollars and ask them to put the money straight into your account, that is usually the most efficient way to do it. Bank of Ireland don't charge commission if you do it that way.

I agree with the previous poster that now is a good time so if I was you I'd stop looking for better rates, cash in your dollars now in the local bank.

The gap or 'spread' between buy and sell rates is the bank's profit margin, this is at it's widest (i.e. worst for the consumer) in places like airport bureaux du change but local high street banks usually give as good as you'll get if you're just trading small amounts.

The word 'treasury' would be used in the context of large companies like IBM and HP repatriating profits back to the US, it's in situations like that that the interbank rate (or close to it) would apply because of the size of the transaction, you're not in the same league.

Armin_Tamzarian

coylemj wrote: »

The word 'treasury' would be used in the context of large companies like IBM and HP repatriating profits back to the US, it's in situations like that that the interbank rate (or close to it) would apply because of the size of the transaction, you're not in the same league.

Any idea how much you'd have to be changing minimum to get a conversion at this rate or is it just for millions etc?

Jet Black

The Bank I worked in it was roughly the equivalent of 10k euro. The rates were still only marginally better. It also depended on how much was being exchanged. The more the better.

coylemj

Armin_Tamzarian wrote: »

Any idea how much you'd have to be changing minimum to get a conversion at this rate or is it just for millions etc?

Several million at a time.

The rate is currently as good as it has been since last Feb., if you keep looking for a better rate the markets will have shifted and the better 'buy' rate that you get will be wiped out by market movements.

Do it now.

Armin_Tamzarian

Jet Black wrote: »

The Bank I worked in it was roughly the equivalent of 10k euro. The rates were still only marginally better. It also depended on how much was being exchanged. The more the better.

That's what I thought.
The previous poster made it sound like Banks would only offer such services for extremetly large transactions.
I've e-mailed my bank to see what they can do for me.
Thanks.

coylemj

OP, if it's an all-electronic transaction you will get close to the interbank rate, I sold some US shares yesterday and the Irish stockbroker gave me a rate of 1.3694.

However if you have a pile of dollar notes you are playing a different game, the bank you sell those notes to has to send them out to branches to be flogged to Irish people travelling to the US. There are considerably more overheads getting rid of your dollars than if the transaction was electronic so don't expect anywhere near the interbank rate. Jet Black did say that the rate was only 'marginally' better if you were selling 10K or so.

Armin_Tamzarian

coylemj wrote: »

However if you have a pile of dollar notes you are playing a different game, the bank you sell those notes to has to send them out to branches to be flogged to Irish people travelling to the US. There are considerably more overheads getting rid of your dollars than if the transaction was electronic so don't expect anywhere near the interbank rate. Jet Black did say that the rate was only 'marginally' better if you were selling 10K or so.

Would setting up a foreign currency account and lodging the Dollars into it not solve this problem?

I've gotten a response from my bank, they can offer me a buy rate that is slightly less than a cent higher than the interbank rate.
This is a lot better than some of the over the counter buy rates I've seen.

kdevitt

Set up an account with currencyfair.com and you'll probably get as close to the interbank as is available. You'll be able to convert into USD and withdraw to any USD account you nominate.