Ongoing Monthly Pension paid into a BofA Account, Is this........

the best way to get at our money in the UK - A Barclays ATM.

DH has a Police Pension that gets paid Direct Deposit into a Bank of America Account here in the US.  I know that we can withdraw funds through a Barclays Bank ATM fee-free but are there any other costs involved?

The money route we were thinking of taking was this:

Pension into BofA - then using HiFX, direct deposit into their bank who then transfer into Pounds Sterling and direct deposit into UK Bank.  I happen to have a Lloyds Bank Account from the early 1990's so I have seriously thought about this route.

If DH and I move back to the UK, we will need his Pension for everyday living like rent, gas, food, utilities etc....  What is the best way to get at his money while living in the UK.

Would it be the use HiFX and their services route?
Would it be withdrawing from a Barclays ATM route?
Would it be opening up another different Bank Account that can be accessed in both Countries?

Or something else?

What is the best, safest, cheapest way to get access to my DH's Pension in the UK.  Bearing in mind that his Pension will ONLY be direct deposited to a US Bank NOT a UK one those are the rules unfortunately.  They will mail him a Pension Check every month to a UK address but we feel it isn't as safe and might get lost one month.

LLoyds charges 8 pounds every time you put a personal check written in US Funds into one of their accounts, eg.. We were to write a BofA Personal Check in the amount of his Pension every month and put it into my Lloyds Account.

Any other thoughts or suggestions anyone? 

My credit union charges 3% each time I make a withdrawal from an international ATM. However, if you make a large withdrawal, then deposit that into your UK account the fee wouldn't be too high. You could check into PayPal which is a simple way of transferring money. There are different plans, but the basic one allows you to transfer $500 per month without charge. You can pay for an upgrade if you think you need more than this. The most expensive route that I've found is doing an international wire transfer from your bank. When I transferred some money from the UK to the US, this cost me 30 pounds. Again though, if it's a large amount of money, the fee would be nominal.

My credit union charges 3% each time I make a withdrawal from an international ATM. However, if you make a large withdrawal, then deposit that into your UK account the fee wouldn't be too high. You could check into PayPal which is a simple way of transferring money. There are different plans, but the basic one allows you to transfer $500 per month without charge. You can pay for an upgrade if you think you need more than this. The most expensive route that I've found is doing an international wire transfer from your bank. When I transferred some money from the UK to the US, this cost me 30 pounds. Again though, if it's a large amount of money, the fee would be nominal.

Bank of America will charge $45 per month/per transfer for a wire transfer if done by them on an ongoing monthly basis.

Bank of America will charge $35 per month/per transfer for the same but done and instigated by me.

We only require 1 transfer per month of DH's Pension which is paid on the 1st of every month.

We would have an ongoing payment of approx $2400 per month (equivalent  by today's rates would be about 1600 pounds).

Bank of America also said I had a daily withdrawal limit of $1500 from Barclays in the UK.  I think I might ring the Customer Service staff on this one as a young girl in my local branch told me that.  Not saying I don't believe her, I just would prefer to get a second opinion.

I have thought of Paypal but I am so reluctant to give them too much access to my accounts and money.  I currently have an account linked to them but it has literally $30 in the account so if someone hacks in they only have access to $30.  About 8 yrs ago I had fraud perpetuated on me through Paypal targeting my joint checking account with DH at that time.  They attempted to withdraw over $3,000.  Thankfully my bank manager realized something wasn't right because we never spend that much in one go and halted the proceedings.  I then called the police, got a police report and reported it to Paypal, I never heard from them and when I tried to access my account with my email I was promptly told my account didn't exist.  It was all so weird.  1 day later someone tried withdrawing $1600 form my own personal account in a different bank altogether which wasn't even linked to Paypal.  It was all very strange.  I guess they could have accessed all the data through my computer but I didn't do any online banking at the time and everything was done in person.  Police never did get to the bottom of it and I never felt comfortable again with Paypal.  It took me another 6 yrs to to get the balls to deal with my Paypal account again.  And get this..........my old account was suddenly available to me again 6yrs later,  I just typed in my old email and old password and bingo I was able to access Paypal again.  All very strange.  You can see why I'm very reluctant to deal with them.

Anyone out there have any other suggestions other than what we have talked about here.

What about a US Bank that has easy dealings with a UK Bank.  I have seen on here stuff about HSBC, what do y'all think of them or Barclays.  I really am just looking for the best, safest, cheapest way to access DH's Pension for everyday needs in the UK transferring the money on a monthly basis.

I have a very limited account with Lloyds Bank, they refused to let me close it in 2006.  I did however manage to close my Abbey National Account.  Didn't think I was ever coming back to the UK then.  My.......how things change.  I will probably have trouble getting another different Bank Account and I imagine Barclays not being too receptive.  They refused me a bank account when I was a worker and living there in my late teens/early 20's.  In fact to get my Abbey National Account my father co-signed the account and the a couple of yrs later we took him off.  The only reason I have a Lloyds Bank Account is because the Royal Navy opened it on my behalf when I joined up.

Are the UK Banks still stick in the muds when it comes to opening an account?

I can't imagine my Mum & Dad having to Co-Sign a bank account for DH & I at our ages, how embarrassing.

I know nothing about US to UK banking.  There is a special relationship between Barclays and BOA.  Because of that, when we go to the US, we get cash from BOA machines & we don't have to pay any service charge.  I don't know how it works from the US to the UK though - it'd probably be worth investigating that further for you from the sounds of it.  Most UK cash machines don't have a service charge like you do in the US, but some do & they will say that on them if so.

When I wire funds (which is rare) from the UK to the US (not to a BOA account), I pay a wire service charge on both ends.  The generation fee on this end is around 12 pounds IIRC, and I think my bank's charge there for receipt was $20, but it's been awhile since I've done that & fees may have increased.

Here is the FSA's brochure on how to open a basic bank account in the UK:

http://www.moneymadeclear.fsa.gov.uk/pdfs/bank_accounts.pdf

A basic bank account is one without any overdraft privileges or chequebook, etc (one without any credit facilities on it).  Almost anyone should really be able to open one (a basic bank account) as long as you can provide proof of identity and proof of UK address.  The brochure has full details on it.  With one or two exceptions (undischarged bankrupt or record of fraud), if the bank is telling you they cannot open a basic bank account for you, they are full of crap.

Other options apart from high street banks, are credit unions and building societies.

I was paid by my company into my US BofA account for a while.  I did the transfer the old fashioned way, pulled the money out of the ATM/Cashpoint and then deposited the cash into my bank account.  There is no charge for this, the cost is really in your time.   My withdrawal limit from BofA was $500, so I had to do quite a few withdrawls/deposits.  I think you might want to double-check to see what your cash withdrawal limit is.  I believe with BofA, you have two limits.  One for cash and one for the debit card, which is usually higher.

If you can wait for the cheque to clear, £8.00 doesn't seem like a bad an option.  Only one deposit a month that way. (Check how long they say it will take to clear. Barclays told me US checks take 25 business days.  I have heard that really they clear in about a week.)

I was paid by my company into my US BofA account for a while.  I did the transfer the old fashioned way, pulled the money out of the ATM/Cashpoint and then deposited the cash into my bank account.  There is no charge for this, the cost is really in your time.   My withdrawal limit from BofA was $500, so I had to do quite a few withdrawls/deposits.  I think you might want to double-check to see what your cash withdrawal limit is.  I believe with BofA, you have two limits.  One for cash and one for the debit card, which is usually higher.

If you can wait for the cheque to clear, £8.00 doesn't seem like a bad an option.  Only one deposit a month that way. (Check how long they say it will take to clear. Barclays told me US checks take 25 business days.  I have heard that really they clear in about a week.)

Yep 8 quid doesn't sound too bad does it.  It would just be a matter of finding out how long the clearing process takes.  We would have to budget for that up front and have a months worth of money, my only concern is the exchange rate through that method, same as withdrawing from the ATM, the rate of exchange probably isn't good.

What do y'all think of going the other route, HiFX, XE or another Foreign Currency Exchange program where you lock in the exchange rate long term at 6/12/18 months at a time.  You have to pay a months salary up front to cover the last month plus the current month.  So for us to do it that way we would need 2 x $2400 for the initial contract.  That's a fair chunk of money on top of saving for shipping goods across and plane tickets and spousal visa etc....  + a load of debt to pay off.  I don't see it as at all possible right now, this is slowly becoming a financial back breaking nightmare.  When you start to see the numbers add up it gets very tempting to just walk away from everything.

my only concern is the exchange rate through that method, same as withdrawing from the ATM, the rate of exchange probably isn't good.

I have found the exchange rate from the ATM to be really good. The rate is usually whatever the rate is for the day when I check it out on Forex websites.  It is much better than if I had dollars exchanged at the Barclays bureau de change.  I would think a cheque would be similar, but as you said, it would be best to check it out.

I have found the exchange rate from the ATM to be really good. The rate is usually whatever the rate is for the day when I check it out on Forex websites.  It is much better than if I had dollars exchanged at the Barclays bureau de change.  I would think a cheque would be similar, but as you said, it would be best to check it out.

Thanks, I appreciate the input.  It would certainly mean not having to save the huge upfront costs of doing it through a Foreign Exchange.

I think if we just took out via the ATM between 2 & 4 big lump payments every month and lived well within our means on cash then this certainly could be a simpler way for us.  Once I get work sorted out we hopefully wouldn't have to access as much of DH's money and maybe start to save instead.  If for any reason it didn't work out in the UK or if he ever needed to go back to the US for while say 10yrs down the road he would at least have an account with a good chunk of money in it.