# Transferring money from Abu Dhabi to UK



## chris89

Hi guys,
This has probably been asked before but I couldn't find a thread that was up to date so thought I would start a new one.

I'm moving to Abu Dhabi in around 6weeks and I'm primarily looking to save while I'm there. I would have a couple of monthly bills here in the UK that I would still need to pay while in Abu Dhabi so was wondering if anyone knew the best way to transfer money back into my UK account whilst in UAE? Would PayPal work? I was thinking I could use PayPal because that would be free? 

Thanks in advance! 
Chris


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## BedouGirl

There's lots of information on this on the Dubai forum that should help you.


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## jhmaeng

By far the easiest way is to leave a bank account open in the UK, and then you will have various options to send money to that account once you've set up here.

I made the mistake of going for the "easy" option, i.e. HSBC, who heavily sell their "instant and discounted" transfers to your own HSBC account in the UK. However, I found that their customer service is a shower of .... and also discovered other banks here (ADCB in my case) which offers free overseas transfers, better currency rates, and a far better customer experience. You should definitely do some research before choosing the bank once you arrive.


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## chris89

Thanks for the responses, much appreciated. That's out my mind at rest a bit. I take it there would be a small charge for transferring money between an Abu Dhabi account and my open UK account yeah?


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## jhmaeng

chris89 said:


> Thanks for the responses, much appreciated. That's out my mind at rest a bit. I take it there would be a small charge for transferring money between an Abu Dhabi account and my open UK account yeah?


It depends.

For example, with ADCB they don't charge any service fee to send the money out, but I think HSBC UK charged a small amount when they received it. And the currency rate difference between XE.com (i.e. the base rate) and the rate used for transfer was only 1%, which I found was very reasonable.

(By way of comparison, the banks typically charge a ~3% foreign transaction fee when you are spending in a foreign currency)


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## AlexDhabi

Nothing is really free (they build their commission into the exchange rates and say there is no charge)! Why would anyone use PayPal?
I bank with a big Abu Dhabi bank and pay 30 AED whenever I transfer to my UK account and it arrives the same day. I don't always transfer monthly so save that way. Also they have offers several times a year when the 30 AED charge is waived. I could watch the exchange rates and time it better; or get a better exchange rate in an exchange house but I find on-line is more convenient. 
Definitely keep a UK bank account open and also keep one UK credit card (only a free one) in case your UAE one gets blocked for any reason (it happens quite a lot here). I also pay my CC off in full every month by direct debit to save paying interest and would advise anyone else to do the same.


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## Racing_Goats

We found it cheaper for my wife to keep a uae credit card in the UK, as she and the kids are back there now, and withdraw cash from that every month that I then pay off here. Get a card with no cash advance fees and a long distance wife and you be good to go


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## jhmaeng

Racing_Goats said:


> We found it cheaper for my wife to keep a uae credit card in the UK, as she and the kids are back there now, and withdraw cash from that every month that I then pay off here. Get a card with no cash advance fees and a long distance wife and you be good to go


Even without the cash advance fees, you are paying 3% foreign transaction fee (every single credit card that I've seen so far has this). I can't see how it would be cheaper when you could just be paying 1% difference in currency rates to transfer money to a UK bank account?


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## Racing_Goats

When I transferred to UK through my UAE bank there was an excessive handling fee from their UK branch/agent which made the cc option better for us


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## kafelnikoff

Perhaps worth trying this: revolut dot com if you can top it up in USD even with double conversion AED USD GBP it might still be cheaper. Works well for me in Europe but I have not had a chance to try via UAE.


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## driftingaway

We've just been withdrawing cash, keeping it in a pile and then when the rates are right (ie. under 5.5aed/£) taking it to the exchange shop in Boutik Mall (or any of the exchange places)... it costs 50aed but the rates seem to be really close to XE.com.

Barclays in the UK doesn't seem to charge us anything to receive the funds into our account.


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## rocker91

i use transferwise but the otherway around to transfer money from u.k to my uae account. the exchange rates they give is pretty good


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