OT: Euro bank account & transfering to it from Sterling

[OldFashioned]

I appreciate this is a bit off topic but am hoping with the wealth of knowledge on this site someone may be able to advise the best option.

It is looking like I will need a Spanish bank account as will need to make payments to people there in Euro’s and possible receive also. Nothing particularly large, a few thousand per month. Basically wondered if anyone had any tips on setting this up and also the best way to transfer from my UK bank accounts in Sterling over to Euro’s, with as good a transfer rate as possible as probably need to do 10-15k initially.

Many thanks in advance.

[Blair Waldorf Salad]

You could try N26, a German app-based bank. Free current account and then charges for services kick in only after a certain threshold, e.g. first 3 ATM withdrawls per month are free.

Anyway it has a built-in link to Wise for foreign currency transfers. So it should be quite seamless to send money to it and from it.

Basically N26 is in English and saves you wading through fee T&Cs in Spanish for a Spanish bank; plus likely offers overall savings on forex.

[SamG]

If you need an actual Spanish bank for some reason then CaixaBank is good, you can open online but you’ll need to go to a branch within a few months. Otherwise Wise or similar will do the job just fine. You’re better off using one of these and transferring into your Spanish account if required to get the best exchange rate

[QwertyKnowsBest]

I used to have a Spanish bank account (Sabadell) for paying bills by DD etc. Got tired of the charges applied, now use Wise. DD’s set up for all utilities and they work! Using a Wise Euro account with Belgian ibahn. The only one that was problematic was tax, they said that even though in the EU an EU ibhan should work, it would not. So now pay these online.

Was a good move, save on both fees and better exchange rates with Wise.

[gtellez]

I would go with Revolut Premium (£7 a month, a bit cheaper if you pay the entire year upfront). You get an euro and gbp bank account (among other currencies) and unlimited non-fee fx transactions at a very good rate.

[0 post]

Or Starling, which is free and offers euro account.

[PIL]

The HSBC currency account is a good option as it is has a SEPA Euro account and has the same charges as Spanish banks when you send money to it. When you send money out of it, then it is fee free.

For fx transfers, I always use Wise and I am happy with the rates.

[ChrisBCN]

Definitely go Wise for the transfer part – you can trust them and you will find it very difficult to beat their rates. The app works well. Rather than send all of your money in one go, I would split it into several chunks over a few days or so.

[OldFashioned]

Thank you everyone for the assistance it is very helpful. Wise will certainly be used by the looks of things, just checking the details of the other suggestions.