In a recent report produced by the Post Office has found that British expatriates are still loosing out when transferring money abroad due to their reliance on UK banks.
The report produced in co-operation with the ExpatForum.com website who surveyed their members found that expats are on average wasting £152 per year on making transfers via UK banks and incurring transaction charges. They infer that £228 million pounds could be being wasted each year.
Depending on the UK bank being used there is a large variation in amount charged to make a transfer with HSBC charging £9 and Nationwide charging £25 for a €500 transfer using a standard account. In addition to the transaction free transfers being offered by the Post Office other services such as TransferWise have launched in recent years to try and make transfering money abroad as cheap and easy as possible.
Their research also found that British expats across Europe are experiencing living costs increasing at a far faster rate than inflation with expatriates in Greece and Portugal stating that household costs had risen by up to 20% in the last year. Generally expats across Europe were found to be less confident that last year even though the Pound has recovered against the Euro over the last few months though it’s still weaker than it was at the start of the year.
Read the full article: http://www.postoffice.co.uk/uk-expats-hit-by-poor-exchange-rate
