Whether you are buying or selling a property here in Spain you will be carrying the transactions out in Euros. You should try out converting your currency with Wise (formerly TransferWise).
For buyers, if your originating funds are in Sterling (Pounds) you’ll need to arrange to get those funds converted into Euros.
For sellers, if you intend to head back to your non-EU currency country, you’ll need to do the reverse and convert those Euros into your destination country’s currency.
In the past, you may well have simply transferred from one bank to the other, letting the banks take care of currency conversion. You would have no doubt paid a lot in fees. Additionally there may have been slight delays in the transfer of funds.
A better option, and recommended by us is to use Wise (formerly TransferWise) for your currency transactions.
The Wise Multi-Currency Account
The Wise Multi-Currency account (it used to be known as Wise Borderless Account) is a really handy bank account to get. Currently the account is free (except for the issue of a debit card) and gives you as standard four bank accounts in one. You get a Sterling (UK account) complete with sort code and account number, a Euro account (with an IBAN number), and also US dollars and a Polish account. You can also open accounts in other currencies too.
You manage the accounts either online or through their app, and can transfer and convert one currency to another with ease, with very low fees and at the current mid market rate (you can think of this as the ‘real’ rate) which is not only better than your bank’s rates but also many other currency converting services too.
You may also transfer to external bank accounts such as a Spanish account (unfortunately a Spanish bank account is still needed for many financial transactions in Spain).
Scheduled Transfers with Wise
A fairly new and unique feature available with your Wise account is the ability to set up a scheduled conversion.
For example, if you wished to convert £1000 to Euros and the rate had recently dropped to 1.11 but you thought it would probably bounce back to 1.18 you can setup a conversion to only take place when the higher rate is at least reached. If you’re getting ready to pay a deposit on a home, or getting funds in place, this can be a really good way of getting more for your money. Under this scenario at 1.11 you might get somewhere around €1110 and at 1.18 somewhere around €1180 (this doesn’t take into account the conversion fee, which may be around the £4 mark). An extra €70 per every £1000.
For a further article on using a Wise Multi-Currency account you can read an article we published on our sister website (All Tech Plus) which looks at some everyday transactions and their fees.
Wise do not place limits on large transactions but may ask for details regarding the large amounts (ie. from where it came). They also offer a sliding scale of discounts dependent on the amount of money you send/convert/transfer. To get an idea of such costs, the article on their website may be helpful to you.
