Kibkom North Cyprus Forum

Can any one let me know the least expensive way, without opening a Premier Account, to
transfer money from the UK to TRNC banks please? Currently it's costing my wife £25.00 each transfer from Santander UK to Iktisatbank here. Thanks. John

johnerebus wrote:Can any one let me know the least expensive way, without opening a Premier Account, to
transfer money from the UK to TRNC banks please? Currently it's costing my wife £25.00 each transfer from Santander UK to Iktisatbank here. Thanks. John

£25 seems to be the norm .. I was looking at transferring to Creditwest & it was £25 no matter how much was transferred ..

The cheapest way is to write a cheque and wait about 28days for it to clear unless of course this has changed in the last six months.

John..............have you thought about transferring your money online? This is easy to set up and do and the UK charge is 9.50GBP, the money arrives in a couple of days and there is a nominal charge at this end. Suggest that you make enquries with your UK bank and your TRNC bank. Hope this helps.

For day to day expenses (up to £300 I believe) Halfax Clarity Credit Card is not charging for ATM cash withdrawals in Sterling or TL nor do they make a charge for purchasing goods in a foreign currency.
No good for transferring thousands at once but as I say good for day to day or even week to week expenses

When we first arrived here, we wrote out a cheque from our Uk bank and it took 3 weeks to clear.
We now use our Nationwide debit card to draw out sterling from the ATM and change into ytl at exchange.
There is a limit of £300 on each transaction. Nationwide do not charge for drawing out sterling abroad.

Does anyone know if there is an ATM machine dispensing sterling in Catalkoy?

Nationwide do not charge on Credit cards for purchases made in Sterling either, we paid for our holiday on 6th Jan and paid the bill on 19th Feb with no interest added. It has to be a flex account not a card account.

I agree with Crofter,do it online, £9.50 regardless of the amount and it's here in a couple of days,

I was in formed that f you open 2 separate HSBC accounts one in the UK & the other in TRNC you can transfer FOC
I have done the UK account I will be doing the TRNC next week.

Sorry to disappoint but unless you are a Premier customer HSBC will charge to transfer funds.

I 2nd Cyprusishome, you will need to be a Premier account holder for free transfers with HSBC.
Even then sometimes you get charged and have to get them to credit it back if they don't realise you are premier.

Thanks for that

You should go for Premier status in TRNC first - it is cheaper than the UK. Once you have it here then you have it worldwide.

We can now draw out £500 a day and I understood that most UK banks had upped their limit as well. In other words if you have a large tl bill to pay, at £500 a day we were able to reach the amount required in 7 daily withdrawals.

If you're near London you can go to the Turk Bank branch there and send it via air transfer. You can put the money in anyone's name and all they need is their passport to collect it in the TRNC. You can collect the money from any branch in Cyprus the next day. I think there's a charge of about 13-15tl.

Obviously if you not near London and are paying for petrol it's a lot more expensive than that!

Check that you are using the 'Domestic' method of transferring from the UK to Iktisatbank.
They have only started doing this again fairly recently and is much cheaper.

It involves using only Sort Codes and Account Numbers, like you would in the UK. No need for IBAN numbers or Swift Codes.

It costs 0.1% or 20TL, whichever is the greatest.

Email the English department at Iktisatbank and they will forward to you an instruction of how to transfer your money.

I hope this helps.

Thanks to every one for their helpful replies. Much appreciated. John

I took a uk cheque to Credit West today. Was told it will cost 132tl charges plus the cost of DHL to send cheque to UK plus 28 days to clear it. This isn't what they told me when I opened the account 3 months ago. Does anyone know for definite which bank doesn't charge for taking uk cheques. I don't mind waiting 28 days. Thanks

We have a UK HSBC account and Visa card, we go to HSBC cash point in Girne (2 of them) or Lefkosha and just draw sterling out, we both have a card so between us we can draw £1,000 a day between us, no charges. Then we can get the best local exchange rate.