Axia Fx Reviews??

[Moodyblue]

I am moving to Malta later this year and plan to move a largish sum of Sterling over to cover a large part of the property costs. When I live here, I will be transferring regular monthly (or perhaps on quarterly) sums of my UK government pension. I am thinking of using [Name removed. Please read our posting guidelines - we ask that people don't ask for recommendations in this way as it only leads to spam and people trying to score free adverts.]. Does anyone have any reviews of this organisation - good or bad, or are there any other recommendations out there?

[Kay]

We personally used Currency UK - see the banner on the right-hand-side of this page. We were happy with their service which was efficient and we got a good rate. There are others, of course, so you'll probably want to shop around.

If you choose Currency UK, please go through our banner link as we get commission at no extra cost to you. Thanks.

One thing for sure is don't do it through a bank whatever you do - you'll lose out big time.

[Moodyblue]

I had a look at your suggestion. Thanks for the info. As you say, there are others around. HiFX and Axia Fx both claim to get best rates and don't charge anything to transfer, plus they can buy ahead and lock in a rate for up to 2 years. I have been using Travelex to fransfer to France and they charge me £10 a month. A point of interest to all who regularly transfer money to Malta, HSBC charge to receive money into your account, whereas APS do not. I know which one I will be using.

[john07900]

If you have an HSBC 'Premier' account, there is no charge to transfer money to Malta.

However transfer costs are only half the story and as you say exchange rates do vary.

[gozomark]

do currency UK do Maltese pounds ?

I use HSBC - their fx rates are pretty good - a spread of 3.2% - ie you lose 1.6% in converting one way, plus I can convert the £ into MTL on line when I feel the fx rate is attractive.

However, I'm very happy to do better than that is possible ! What sort of spreads do the "non-bank" companies mentioned above use ?

[Kay]

Currency UK only list the major world currencies on their on-site currency converter so, like you, I wondered whether they also did our local currency (THB). They do. I think they do just about everything - maybe I should give them the heads-up to get themselves a better currency converter for their site.

I know we're affiliated with them via BE but we use them personally too and have been more than happy with their service. They held our hands through the process the first time (when we were transferring funds to buy property) as we weren't sure of what we were doing. They respond very quickly to emails and give good customer service. I'm sure if you emailed them about their spreads they'd be happy to answer.

(Our offshore bank, AIB, wanted to charge us 5% of the value of the transaction! So, I repeat, be very careful of doing currency exchanges via banks.)

I admit that we looked at some other for-ex services and shopped around the next time we wanted to do a big transfer, but we just never had the confidence in the others we looked at (mix-ups and not very good customer service) so we went back to Currency UK again.

If you decide to use Currency UK, please use our links as we get commission at no cost to you. We need to earn a crust too.

Our affiliate link is: http://www.currencyuk.co.uk/?1304