# Currency transfer



## jonathanharland (Oct 23, 2014)

I need to transfer a reasonably substantial amount of money from the UK and was looking at GCEN to do this. They have been recommended on posts up to 3 years ago. Has anyone had any recent experience of them? Thanks


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## chestnut (Apr 1, 2013)

I use them every month and am happy with them.

However my needs are simple.

D.


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## MrMM (Jan 15, 2015)

Transferwise is good? But with AED it only converts from GBP to AED at the moment, not the other way round... although I'm not sure what the quantity cap is. Cheaper than most organisations and definitely the banks... usually charge 1% I think.


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## mkhalid123 (Apr 14, 2014)

you can use paypal service, its nice and secure and you can withdraw here in UAE anytime.


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## LesFroggitts (Dec 30, 2013)

chestnut said:


> I use them every month and am happy with them.
> 
> However my needs are simple.
> 
> D.


@ Chestnut

Quick question, PM answer to me if you feel the need to, When you're transferring from here to presumably the UK, do you pay your AEDs into their UAE branch or do you have to transfer to their UK accounts?

I've used Currencyfair in the past but recently it seems to take longer to reach their account before I am able to purchase the destination currency.


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## asharma0001 (Mar 21, 2014)

LesFroggitts said:


> @ Chestnut
> 
> Quick question, PM answer to me if you feel the need to, When you're transferring from here to presumably the UK, do you pay your AEDs into their UAE branch or do you have to transfer to their UK accounts?
> 
> I've used Currencyfair in the past but recently it seems to take longer to reach their account before I am able to purchase the destination currency.


When I used GCEN, I transferred from my UAE account to their UAE one. They then transferred from their UK one to my UK one. Can't remember exactly how long the process took, but was pretty quick from what I remember.


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## chestnut (Apr 1, 2013)

LesFroggitts said:


> @ Chestnut
> Quick question, PM answer to me if you feel the need to, When you're transferring from here to presumably the UK, do you pay your AEDs into their UAE branch or do you have to transfer to their UK accounts?


I do an international money transfer from my Dubai HSBC account to GCEN's RBS account in London, charging the HSBC international transfer fees to the beneficiary (i.e. GCEN). GCEN then transfers the "equivalent" number of pounds (at a rate that depends on the size of the transfer, but is usually 1.5% from the market mid-point which I can see on xe.com and you know the rate when you ask for the transfer) to my UK Natwest account. The whole process usually takes 3-4 days when I send the money from the UAE on a Sunday. I'm not sure if the fact that my UK account and GCEN are in the same banking group is saving time on the transfer...

Doing the same transfers via HSBC would cost me around 3% plus the international transfer fees of around AED 100/transfer) and I might be charged by Natwest to receive an international transfer but I'd have to check the fees/T&Cs to be sure.

I can set-up both the HSBC-GCEN transfer and the currency "deal" with GCEN online. I have not set-up an automatic transfer but it takes me around 5 minutes to do this online (most of the time waiting on the HSBC banking web site). GCEN send around 4 email at various stages of the process (confirming the purchase of GBP, asking me to send them the money, confirming receipt of the money and confirming they've sent it on).

Incidentally GCEN allows you to transfer 1 amount to them and then send that money onto more than one recipient, though I have not tested that.

Only issue I had at one point with GCEN was with their web site, and this was resolved after 1 phone call. Otherwise I'm a happy customer.

I chose to use GCEN based on recommendations/comments on this site and have no affiliation with them ;-)


Maybe one point of note: The rate I get is depending on the amount and is mostly not the slightly optimistic rate you can see on their web site (unless you are logged in): As an example, exchanging 30K AED to GBP:
Main web site pages says you get GBP 5245
Once logged in: GBP 5166
xe.com mid-point calculation: GBP 5238 (note that this is I think delayed by 15 minutes)


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## cfposi (Jun 12, 2015)

I've got an HSBC Premier account in the UK. They have already opened an account for me in the UAE ahead of my arrival and with their global banking view online, I can instantly transfer up to £20,000 per day between my UAE and UK accounts free of charge. 

The only downside of this is that the exchange rate will not be as competitive as some outfits, but I love the convenience of it!


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## chestnut (Apr 1, 2013)

Hi cfposi,
"Free of charge" means that you don't have to pay a fee for the transfer in itself (the AED 100 I mentioned). It does not mean you are getting the market forex rate for the conversion to GBP. HSBC put a weighting on that and you will pay between 2 and 3% for the privilege of doing that exchange through HSBC. I use GCEN as the weighting is only 1.5%. On 20K, that's a GBP 300 difference!

I'd rather spend the GBP 300 on a night out with my better half.

D.


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