Halifax adds additional fees into their exchange rates, which vary from 1.5% for larger transfers to 3.55% for small to mid-value transfers. This makes transfers with Halifax more expensive than the best alternatives.
Halifax charges no transaction fee for euro payments, and supports over 30 currencies.
Send amount | Exchange rate margin |
|---|---|
£0 to £10,000 | 3.55% |
£10,000 to £50,000 | 3.55% to 2.4% |
£50,000 to £100,000 | 2.4% to 2.1% |
£100,000 to £250,000 | 2.1% to 1.5% |
£250,000+ | 1.5% |
Contrast this to specialist money transfer services, who offer effective total fees in the range of 0.2% to 1%, and you can see Halifax isn't a good option.
The total cost of your transfer is a function of transfer fees and how good an exchange rate you get.
Many currency brokers charge no transfer fees, and offer competitive rates in the 1% range.
Digital services like Wise do charge fees, but their rates include no markup.
Banks often promote low or no transaction fees, but their exchange rates are usually poor. Halifax, unfortunately, is no exception.
Step by step guide for Halifax customers
It's very straightforward to send funds from Halifax to a foreign account. You just need to add a step: sign up with an intermediary and send funds via them.
Compare money transfer companies and do a search to find who has the best live rates today
Sign up and verify your account with your chosen service
Set up your transfer and recipient details
Fund your transfer by sending a GBP payment from your Haliax account to the details shown
The money transfer provider will convert it using the rate and fees shown, before sending the currency to your recipient
Receiving overseas payments
Halifax uses the same exchange rate markup structure for incoming transfers as outgoing. That means if you receive a foreign currency payment to your account, Halifax will automatically convert it using these rates.
How Halifax international service compares to other UK banks
I created a guide to UK banks and their international transfer fees. Take a look there for a more detailed view.
But to summarise, Halifax isn't the worst, nor the best. Co-Operative Bank has some of the highest FX markups of all UK banks, while Nationwide is decent (as far as banks go) for low-value overseas transfers.
Quite a few other banks use a similar sliding scale to Halifax, where the rate improves the more you send.
The key point is this: if you're sending money abroad using any bank, you're probably barking up the wrong tree!
