Pension transfer and investment advice

Currently my Father has his UK Government pension, private pension and the small pension of my Mother paid direct from the UK into his Sabadell account. He doesn't pay any quarterly charges to Sabadell, presumably because he has these monthly credits.

I was wondering if he would be better off paying all the pensions into his UK bank account and then transferring them across through a Currency exchange company to take advantage of better exchange rates. Financially he is be able to wait for 7-8 months until the pensions get to £10k before doing a transfer. I assume he would then have to pay Sabadell 120 Euros p.a. as his pension is not paid directly into Sabadell. Not sure if he could avoid Sabadell charges by having my Mothers small pension paid directly into Sabadell directly? Just wondered if someone has been there and done the sums?

I'm with Sabadell. My pension gets paid into my UK bank account, as does my wife's. To avoid charges, we need to deposit 700 euros per month into our Sabadell account and we do this via a currency exchange company (Transferwise)

I was talking to a "financial expert" yesterday, and he told me that it is better to have pensions etc paid directly. That way you will get the inter-bank exchange rate. If you use a currency transfer company you will get a slightly lower rate.

The downside of this is that you will get the current rate. If you use a transfer company you can time the transfers for when the rate is more agreeable.

Has he check to see what rate he is getting with Sabadell

garysl wrote:I'm with Sabadell. My pension gets paid into my UK bank account, as does my wife's. To avoid charges, we need to deposit 700 euros per month into our Sabadell account and we do this via a currency exchange company (Transferwise)

Thanks that's useful to know.

Tom1957 wrote:I was talking to a "financial expert" yesterday, and he told me that it is better to have pensions etc paid directly. That way you will get the inter-bank exchange rate. If you use a currency transfer company you will get a slightly lower rate.

The downside of this is that you will get the current rate. If you use a transfer company you can time the transfers for when the rate is more agreeable.

While the inter bank rate may be better, I believe the banks will charge a commission of around 3% for a transfer. After this is taken into account, good currency companies should beat that rate.

jpeg wrote:Has he check to see what rate he is getting with Sabadell

The rate varies with each transfer.

Sabadell do not charge for transfers into an Expansion account