Lloyds Bank Currency Exchange Payments

Lloyds Bank Exchange Rates

If you have a Lloyds bank account, you will be pleased to know that you can make international money transfers either online or via the telephone. How does this stack up to dedicated money transfer services however? Well, that is what we will take a look at on this page.

Now, you can start the international payment process through Lloyds at any time of the day. However, the payment will only be processed during normal banking hours, and that is only if the team are able to get around to it. This means that the later you make the payment in the day, the less chance you have of it being dealt with then. This means that the process is not the fastest in the world. In addition to this, there are strict limits on the amount of money that you can transfer each day through Lloyds. The limit is £75,000. This should be fine for most people, however, if you are sending more cash than this, and some businesses will do so, you will probably want to look elsewhere.

The fees for sending payments through Lloyds are not exactly extortionate, but they are certainly not the cheapest. If you are going to be making a payment online then you will pay the following:

- £10 for payments less than £5,000.
- £17.50 for payments over.

Payments over the telephone will be double this. International drafts are fixed at £10. However, you should bear in mind that you will not be quoted the fee that the receiver has to pay. Some banks, such as NatWest, allow you to pay this fee, but you can’t do that through Lloyds, which is somewhat of a negative.

I feel one of the biggest downsides of Lloyds is the fact that they really do try to profit off of their exchange rates, quite a lot actually. From what I can tell, the exchange rates at Lloyds are not tracked in real time, and thus they can be on the expensive side. In fact, from time to time, Lloyds are one of the most expensive banks out there.

The transfer times are not all that great either. Most other banks will allow you to transfer money almost anywhere in the world in less than three days. That is not the case with Lloyds. You can look forward to huge transfer times:

- Next working day if you are sending Euros within Europe.
- 4 working days if sending any other currency within Europe, to the Middle East, Far East, Australia, New Zealand, North America, Canada, and South Africa.
- 12 Working days anywhere else in the world.

This means that Lloyds is not going to be ideal for those who are looking to make speedy payments. Honestly, you would be better off with one of the many other banks if you go down that route. I only suggest using Lloyds if you have a bank account with them, and even then, do try and look into other money transfer companies beforehand.