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Lloyds bank (formerly Halifax) in Spain

Lloyds bank (formerly Halifax) in Spain

Postby Jan » Mon Nov 05, 2012 6:39 pm

Hi,

Does anyone know what their Spanish bank charges for ATM cash withdrawals with their Debit card?

I guessed it was coming but we have just had notification that Lloyds in Spain has started charging for this service. It may happen in the UK one day but it has always been a free service here as it was in Spain.

The problem is that the first letter said 0.4% charge for each cash withdrawal with 2.4 euros minmum, which seemed ok. However another letter has just arrived (2 weeks after the first) revising that figure to 4% charge for cash, which is a lot of difference and seems a bit hefty!! 12 euros on each 300 euros!

Our Halifax/Lloyds in the UK has not changed their charging rules and is still free for this service.

Shall we change banks or is this the charge all over Spain?

Thanks in advance for any information.

Jan
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Re: Lloyds bank (formerly Halifax) in Spain

Postby Dot » Mon Nov 05, 2012 7:34 pm

Hi Jan, we have nationwide account it's 1% 4 is very steep we now do online banking and just transfer over to Spanish bank.
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Re: Lloyds bank (formerly Halifax) in Spain

Postby Jan » Tue Nov 06, 2012 10:18 am

Hi Dot,
Thanks - Yes 1% is not bad but going from no charge to 4% seems a bit steep. We have found Halifax (now Lloyds in Spain but still Halifax in the UK) to be very good over the years. We transfer free online from UK Halifax to Spain and don't have to carry much cash to Spain with us, as we use the ATM'S when we need money. However if the Spanish bank are going to charge 4% every time we use the machines we will have to have a rethink!
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Re: Lloyds bank (formerly Halifax) in Spain

Postby Sandra » Tue Nov 06, 2012 12:51 pm

I transfer regular amounts of money - free of charge - through Solbank head office in London to my Quesada account. There is a minimum set amount of £150 pm.

I also have a Santander debit card which allows me to draw out money in England and Spain - free of charge. However, on both my Santander card and Nationwide there is a percentage charge if I buy any goods in Spain:(
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Re: Lloyds bank (formerly Halifax) in Spain

Postby Jan » Tue Nov 06, 2012 1:56 pm

Sandra wrote:I transfer regular amounts of money - free of charge - through Solbank head office in London to my Quesada account. There is a minimum set amount of £150 pm.

I also have a Santander debit card which allows me to draw out money in England and Spain - free of charge. However, on both my Santander card and Nationwide there is a percentage charge if I buy any goods in Spain:(



That's interesting Sandra but I don't think we will 'jump ship' just yet as it has only been 2 weeks that these charges have been added and with the difficulties that Spain are in at the moment it could be that other banks follow suit :(

Our Nationwide & Halifax UK credit cards don't charge for buying goods but do charge for cash withdrawals, as do all credit cards as far as I know. We often use the Nationwide credit card for car hire and they usually do a reasonably good exchange rate as long as we make sure the payment goes through in euros (matching the daily exchange rate at the time of billing us in pounds) and no actual charges.

I haven't looked into using a UK Debit card abroad but will do that now.
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Re: Lloyds bank (formerly Halifax) in Spain

Postby Dot » Tue Nov 06, 2012 5:28 pm

Hi Jan, my nationwide is a debit and they do charge you in Spain,also Sandra what type of an account do you have as I tried to get Santander a/c that did my charge but was told they had stopped it.
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Re: Lloyds bank (formerly Halifax) in Spain

Postby Sandra » Tue Nov 06, 2012 8:06 pm

Dot wrote:Hi Jan, my nationwide is a debit and they do charge you in Spain,also Sandra what type of an account do you have as I tried to get Santander a/c that did my charge but was told they had stopped it.

===============================

Hi Dot

I have a Santander 123 account (debit card) - and you will still get charges on there if you buy goods, but I didn't get charged for cash withdrawal. I only opened the account in July 2012(I think that it was the lure of the 3% interest that did it!!) but another reason was that I felt very indignant at being charged a percentage of a cash withdrawal when I used my Nationwide Card!! I was assured by the Santander branch manager that there would be no charge on cash withdrawals made in Spain. The Nationwide Debit Card is not worth taking to Spain, unless you are going to use it as a back up card!!
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Re: Lloyds bank (formerly Halifax) in Spain

Postby tadpoles » Tue Nov 06, 2012 8:32 pm

If you take out a Nationwide credit card there are no charges made when buying goods. We used ours all summer and have set it up to be paid in full each month so that we never incurr any interest charges. The rate of exchange is as good as you would get anywhere. It saves the problem of transferring money to our Spanish bank or bringing out lots of cash with us.
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Re: Lloyds bank (formerly Halifax) in Spain

Postby Jan » Tue Nov 06, 2012 9:19 pm

tadpoles wrote:If you take out a Nationwide credit card there are no charges made when buying goods. We used ours all summer and have set it up to be paid in full each month so that we never incurr any interest charges. The rate of exchange is as good as you would get anywhere. It saves the problem of transferring money to our Spanish bank or bringing out lots of cash with us.



Hi Tadpoles,
Yes, that's what we do with the Nationwide Credit Card. The relatively new Halifax Clarity Credit card does exactly the same, so we always take the two credit cards & pay in full by D/D each month. However, it has been handy to have the Spanish Debit card for cash withdrawals up to now but with the new 4% charge now each time, it will not be so good .
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Re: Lloyds bank (formerly Halifax) in Spain

Postby Sandra » Tue Nov 06, 2012 9:58 pm

Very Perflexed!!

Have just been using the Santander on-line banking facility! I got my 123 card with the sole purpose of no charges on withdrawal. I didn't receive any charges in September, when I was out there, but the website says that it will make charges for withdrawing money, but the leaflet on the 123 card says "We won't charge you when you use your debit card to withdraw cash at any Santander cash machine in the UK or Spain". Oh, for plain English!!

I also take one of the Traveller's cards. I load money on the card, via a travel agency, and use that as well. It stops you getting carried away with those "bargains"!! The only problem that I came across was that although it carried a VISA sign it was not accepted in all places. It was notably refused in Consum. When I asked the cashier what the problem was she went into a long explanation in Spanish. The gist of it was that these cards do not carry the owners name on the front, as with the ordinary VISA cards. When I came back from the holiday I went into the travel agency and was told that you can request to have a card specially made with your name on it - so problem solved for next time!!;)
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