A Currency Exchange with Retired Expats and QROPs in mind

If you’ve retired abroad and need to send your pension to your local bank account each month, CurrencyFair can help you avoid losing money to bank fees and unfair exchange rates.

During your retirement abroad, transfer money easily and cheaply.

Watch the below video to see just how CurrencyFair works and how we can save you money, and also how our handy recurring payments feature works – perfect for repeating payments like a pension.

If you’re considering retiring abroad in the sun, let us help you with:

• Converting regular or lump sum pension payments
• Relocation and setup expenses
• Buying or selling property abroad
• Foreign currency investments
• Sending money to family and friends, paying for birthday gifts etc.

Involved in expat pensions schemes or QROPs, we can save you money.

Case Study from CurrencyFair Customer Alan Collier-Parker

We bought our first house in France in 1995. 10 Francs to the Pound meant house prices were very low. We paid our deposit to the English Estate Agent and soon after, the remainder to complete the purchase. All was well until my wife was summoned to the Notaires Office (the French equivalent of a solicitor for such purchases) eight weeks after completion of the purchase to be informed that he had not received the required balance.

An irate telephone call from my wife saw the balance paid.

The Euro arrived and we were having alterations carried out to our house. We’d pay using Euro cheques cashed in our UK Bank. I can’t remember if we paid for the cheques but our poor Tradesmen’s bank fees in France were high, and we often had to compensate for these when in the country.

We were working so convenience was the order of the day. To get money we would take cash from cash machines while in France and accept the £15 to £20 pound fee per transaction.

Then retirement came along, living in France permanently and a much lower income and the need to “watch the pennies”.

Our pensions are still paid in the UK, so we found the Nationwide zero cost to take money from your account when overseas. This was cheap, but to get a reasonable amount of money each month it meant a number of visits to the cash point because of personal card limits set. Nationwide stopped the facility so it was necessary to find an alternative cost effective regular cash transfer method.

A friend who was in the same situation found CurrencyFair, which seemed to us to be the best way to send money to another country.

We have not looked back. The CurrencyFair team helped us set up our account and have been extremely helpful to some of our less internet capable friends who have taken advantage of their service. We have used CurrencyFair for a number of years now.

Whether we transfer monthly or ad-hoc, the service remains fast and efficient.

We get clear and timely notification of transactions. We are very happy with the very low fees we are charged for any transaction (€3 each time), and are very pleased with the exchange rates we get.  We’re also quite surprised at just how fast the transfers are completed!

While the majority of our currency exchange transactions are into France, we have needed to send and receive funds to and from the USA. The same day receipt of funds sent from England into a US bank was a big surprise to us.

We have even been able to have my wife’s 90 year old Father, who lives in the USA (and only knows of cheques and does not trust the internet!) use the service to get money to us. It naturally does take a little longer but fitted his ideas.

We will continue to use Currency Fair in 2014 happy in the knowledge we get a fast, efficient transfer of funds to France at low cost and with good exchange rates and will continue to recommend them to our friends..

Alan Collier-Parker, December 2013