Foreign cheques and UK bank accounts

I had a bundle of American Express Dollar travellers cheques which Lloyds would not let me pay into my account ('against policy') but I was able to surrender them to Amex - a somewhat tedious process but after one phone call to remind them I received payment within days. By contrast a cheque from a French bank in Euros was paid without problems,

ronib

Not probate

Sorry, no idea where I'd picked this up
Must have been someone talking about probate on another thread.
Apologies!

No worries NotSpag and am grateful for the comments offered by everyone but still very unsure about a way forward.

HSBC has only recently stopped accepting US dollar cheques. US banking is surprisingly old fashioned and even straightforward bank transfers don't work because the US banks don't have a sort code which a direct transfer needs. My US payments company eventually agreed to do wire transfers, this was the only way they could be recv'd. I believe this costs them money which is why they were so reluctant.

PS I think HSBC does have a foreign currency account, not sure of terms and conditions but maybe worth enquiring if this might work for you.

Flat refusal from HSBC to help.

Supernana1

My husband has always posted sterling cheques to our grandsons in the Republic of Ireland, but their dad has now told us that the Irish banks won't accept the cheques any more.

I don't know what the reasoning is.

We did a direct bank transfer yesterday instead. It was so much nicer to just tuck a cheque into a birthday card!

The reasoning is, as far as I know, that few people use cheques any more. They internetbank or use PayPal or similar.

An old-fashioned paper cheque that a bank accepts, has to be sent back to the bank that issued it, so that it figures in their accounts.

With the price of postage and the unreliability of most countries' postal services, can you really wonder that banks are doing away with a service that is hardly used by anyone any longer?

I had same problem when some UK investments got bought out by a US company. The dividend cheque was for a few dollars but my bank HSBC wanted £36, yes really, to pay it in and convert it. When I eventually managed to track down the right department in the investment company, to get dividends paid electronically straight into my bank they said I had to fill out a form which they emailed to me but I had to POST it back to them in USA. They would not accept a scanned in version. They’re probably having a great time with my dividends that I don’t cash.

We have BACS payment from The Netherlands every month and the bank charge us £5 each month to process it.

Why cheques. Bank transfers much easier, pay pal, operates most countries including America and Australia. Safe transfer, money goes straight into your bank. Use it for all my international money gifts.

Why cheques? The Athene Annuity company doesn’t do bank transfers out of the US. I am very puzzled.

My husband had an American cheque, our bank wouldn't accept it at all and we couldn't cash it at the exchange bureaus in our city centre, in the end we found that Lloyds would accept foreign cheques but my husband had to open an account online and he was charged a percentage of the cheque amount instead of a flat fee of £28 per cheque at our bank before they stopped accepting foreign cheques in January, despite my husband being a customer since 1976 and us having a joint account since 1988.