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[ThaiLife]

I have a Santander Bank account in Spain which Ive held for 10 Years and in a few Months I will be receiving regular payments into my Spanish Santander bank account paid in Euros . I contacted Santander to ask if there's a way I can transfer money from my account in Spain to my Thai bank here , there answer was not really , all they could suggests was I write a transfer request giving all the details and a copy of my passport and then Post it to my Spanish bank every time I wanted to make a transfer of money

I do have access to my Santander account on line , and can't see any reference to arranging a transfer of money

I can't believe that there's no easier way to make a simple transfer from my Santander Bank account in Spain to my Thai bank account , I don't know if I missed some thing when I contacted my Santander Bank Spain , and they got hold of the wrong end of the stick .

I have a strange feeling I am missing some thing about the way Santander arrange a transfer and Posting a written transfer request every time I want to transfer money can't be right - can It ?

Can any one here suggest a better way to go about doing the transfer of money from my Santander Bank account in Spain to my Thai bank account

any advice or comments most welcome

Thanks :jap:

[oilthebeast]

Santander froze my account when I tried to transfer money out telling me to just 'pop in' to the bank with some ID, difficult when you are in Thailand. Anyway, their rates are rubbish.

Open an account with UKforex http://www.ukforex.co.uk and link your Thai account to that using their website. Then just make a deal with them and use the internet banking on your Santander account to transfer money to the UKforex's account in the UK and they credit your Thai account. I've been using them for 7 years and they've been great.

[ThaiLife]

Santander froze my account when I tried to transfer money out telling me to just 'pop in' to the bank with some ID, difficult when you are in Thailand. Anyway, their rates are rubbish.

Open an account with UKforex http://www.ukforex.co.uk and link your Thai account to that using their website. Then just make a deal with them and use the internet banking on your Santander account to transfer money to the UKforex's account in the UK and they credit your Thai account. I've been using them for 7 years and they've been great.

Hi and thanks for the reply, in this day and age of instant online banking I find it hard to understand why such a large group like Santander do not on their internet banking web site offer its customers the option to arrange an electronic transfer of funds as most other well known banks do.

I am going to have a look at the link you kindly provided and see if I can arrange any thing , I don't expect too much in the way of help from Santander .

Thanks :jap:

[oilthebeast]

Yup Santander have a terrible reputation but I also had trouble with their previous incarnation Abbey national. In any case it's always better to use a currency dealer to send money - none of the high street banks will beat their rates. I use Kasikorn in Thailand and the money always arrives without any trouble.

[ThaiLife]

After checking out a few Money forums it seem's that Santander don't seem to have a positive reputation at all

To try and sort out my transferring problem I contacted two currency exchange specialists to see if they could help

1. HiFX

2. OzForex

and they both sent me details of what they can offer

1. HiFX

Thank you for your recent enquiry.

Based on the information we have so far from you, it seems we can help you either with the transfer of your Euros to Thai Bhat or into GB Sterling.

On both of those, you will still need to be able to arrange a transfer of your funds from the Santander bank to us. I understand that the current process for transfer of funds out of the Santander bank is far from ideal; particularly since you have to inform them in writing each time you are looking to arrange a transfer.

2. OzForex

Thanks for your email.

We will be able to help you transfer funds from your Spanish account to your UK or Thai banks if Santander will allow you to transfer the Euros to our Euro account held with Barclays in London.

The transfer would be classified as a local EU transfer from one bank to another. You will need to speak to your Spanish bank to see if they will allow you to make online transfers to other EU countries as Euro payments.

We do not debit client accounts so much speak to the Spanish bank to make sure they will allow you to do this. Sometimes banks are more flexible if the funds are paid within the local EU network.

With our service transfers usually take 6 business days from when payment is sent to us till when funds are cleared into you nominated account.

If your bank will allow you to do this our service fee is EUR10 per transfer under EUR5000 and from the UK GBP7 per transfer under GBP3000. Transfers above these amounts have the transfer fee waived.

Both the above email replys seem to relay on some thing that I all ready know is either not possible or to crazy to think about that involves my Santander bank ( seen the above RED parts )

so it looks as if there's no viable way to transfer money from my Spanish Santander bank to either my uk HSBC or Thai Bank with out having to send a written request every time , I would be thinking of transferring money at Monthly intervals , so writing a transfer request on a Montyhly basis is just not some thing I want to do

Just to point out again my problem with Santander is.. On their secure web site I can check my bank balance , but there's no option to arrange an online money transfer at all, secondly If I want to arrange a money transfer to another bank I have to post a written request each time I want to do a transfer

I am now feeling even worse than before as I thought there was a glimmer of hope that the currency exchange specialists would be the answer .