paying a euro bill from a UK account

We sometimes have to pay bills in Euros (at work) * Fennel* and have no choice but to do it via our bank ( in branch) as we do not have a facility to pay in Euros ourselves. I agree the costs are ridiculous but I don’t think there is any other way . Sorry I can’t come up with a solution, unless you know someone who does bank in Euros and they would do it for you and you could settle with them privately? Good luck .

Have you got the international bank number on what I assume is your Fonciére bill.? If you have you could maybe do an international transfer - or have a look at Transferwise,and there are a couple of others. which do that sort of thing.

I don't know if this helps but I regularly transfer money to my son in the US through an international transfer. I state how much in pounds I want to give him and the dollars appear in his bank account. It costs me £25 each time, which I do not think is too bad.

I ve paid overseas bills for family and the bank automatically changes it to whatever currency you need there is a bank charge though I usually pay about £9 extra

Wow £25 a big fee Travel mines through Lloyd’s and it’s never been more than £9 or 10

PayPal for family is much cheaper - I use that for family in US.

Welshwife There's no international number but my bank here suggested writing to them to ask for it (SWIFT in english).
It costs £1.25 to send a simple letter to France. Much more if registered.
Gilly someone else suggested asking an english friend in France to pay it and re-imbursing them in sterling.
What about paying by card? Credit or debit.

Can’t you pay by credit card? I’m probably being tres naive ? about this. When I pay for my timeshare in Portugal I just use my Saga card.

You can ring your bank or if you still have friends there get them to text you the bank info you just need the Swift code I paid a bill fir my daughter in Europe just last week and it cost me £9

Eglantine what info do you need from your payee to do that?

www.fxcompared.com/money-transfer/france.php

You could look at this, or similar sites Fennel

I know when DD transferred some money to me ages ago she got a one-off charge-free as an inducement to use the firm again, but sorry, I can't remember which one it was.

www.money.co.uk/money-transfers/money-transfer-to-europe.htm
I think DD used the first one on the list

Thank you for that Fennel but the company we pay does not accept cards of any kind . Just checked and our bank charges me £21 to do an international transfer of around 480 EUR . Which is a lot of money .

Fennel, They send me a bill, I just ring up and give my card details. But it’s probably like Gilly who can’t use a card with the company she deals with.

I suppose I just thought everyone worked on cards nowadays. Totally ignorant really. Just putting my oar in?

We regularly transfer money from our British bank to France to pay bills on our maison secondaire. We have just transferred money, in euros to the bank to pay the Taxe Fonciere.

I have the printout in front of me. It is called an International Payment Request You need the bank account details of the authority whose account you wish to pay into and identifying details from the Tax Fonciere bill, numero de proprietaire, possible numero fiscal.

We have just transferred 1,000 euros to our account and it cost £9.50

My job involved making large international payments - I think SWIFT is now called BIC (bank identifier code) and EURO payments need an IBAN number rather than a BIC - this should be cheaper as it automates the payment.

I've used a company called CurrencyFair. Their fees are much less than banks and very efficient. (You will need a SWIFT/BIN number)

Thanks to all. I've just laboriously written a letter asking for all that information.
M0nica we don't have an account in France now.

Fennel I appreciate that, but you should be able to use the same system pay the money direct to the Tresor Public.

I use this: www.currencyfair.com

I'll try that M0nica.
I also wondered if they used paypal.
Another idea, thanks br0adwater.

M0nica - I've now found the part on my online bank account for international payments. So hopefully can do it myself when I've got their bank details.

My RBS online homepage has a section for international payments. I expect they all do.

Why not pay by credit card it's only the same as making a purchase. There will be no fee involved, I regularly pay in US$.