Bank charges

Hi Jukie,

I've heard of Sabadell charging someone €18 for a bank to bank transfer, so perhaps the charge varies depending on the amount of the transfer, or maybe Non-resident versus Resident account holder?  

I always do my currency transfers via Transferwise, so I would hope not to be charged, but time will tell:

www.transferwise.com 

If you're Non-resident, you may want to consider a European bank that offers a Spanish IBAN,  such as Revolut, N26, Starling, Monzo, etc.  They're all online/mobile app banks though, so you would need to be comfortable with no branch support.

There is one bank, Cajamar, which offers a fee-free account called "Wefferente".  Of course, it's always possible that charges will be introduced at some point, but it may be worth looking at, if it's important to you to have branches available.

Kind regards, 

Kim

Made a transfer from Starling GBP account to Sabadell with no charges on Monday 4th January. 

Shaun

I made a transfer from my U.K. bank to Sabadell yesterday no fee taken by Sabadell. I’m hoping it stays that way 🤞

Thanks Anne. May I ask if you're resident, or non-resident?

Kind regards, 

Kim

Thank you for your informative reply, I have been considering moving from Sabadell anyway as it’s currently 35 euros a quarter to run the account and I think that’s set to increase. We already use TransferWise but haven’t done so yet this year. 
At the moment with brexit and covid our hope of retirement in Spain, or even visiting our apartment for a holiday looks unlikely which is a real shame. Maybe a G&T on the balcony in the sunshine would make me feel better😎

Hi Kimmy I’m non resident and I have a Key Account, it mentions this on their website under their Financial Services.

• Issue of national transfers and transfers to EEA countries free of charge (up to €20,000).
• Free reception of transfers from EEA countries in euros, pounds Sterling, Swedish krona and Norwegian krone
• Free reception of transfers from non-EEA countries in the same currencies (up to €50,000).
• Not sure if the last point is why I wasn’t charged? 
• Regards Anne

Sent the following to Starling and await response. 

I have a Starling Euro account and transfer €700 every month. This month I got charged by Sabadell in Spain for receiving this. They responded with asked with the following. 

 "This commission is when you receive a bank transfer from a country where is out of the European Union, it is 0.35% of the amount of the transfer with a minimum of 18€. It is since UK is out of the EU”

There is much discussion on various forums regarding this. Some are saying they are being charged to send Euros from Starling to Sabadell and others are saying they are not. 

What information do Starling have on this and are you looking at a way of resolving, by being able to send on our behalf via a Euro IBAN?

So many of us are very happy using Starling, but are now having to look at other alternatives for our banking unless this is resolved.