Right now my husband is in Italy putting things in place for us to open a butcher/gastronomy shop. We scraped and scrimped in the USA for the past few years to do this.

It's a damned shame that we are facing the dollar/euro exchange rate nightmare, but we are sure of this and are forging ahead.

What we have set up is that the money is in the States right now and my husband has an american bank ATM card.

Yikes! $250 max withdrawals is what he is encountering. basically $5 per withdrawal. We are going to take a bath on fees. Any suggestions?

I was wondering if he could go to the teller at the branch and ask for a bigger withdrawal amount. I suggested this to him, and he is going to try it.

Has anyone faced this dilemna themselves? What strategies have you employed?

I am scouring the posts for ideas.

We are renting a shop, purchasing equipment and all kinds of other purchases, including building out the space.

It won't be just a few hundred here and there.

Any thoughts will be most welcome.

Hi - perhaps I haven't understood properly. Is that on your American bank account? Can't you open an account here and transfer some money directly?

I have done something similar whcih you could try. We have a house in NZ and send money there to spend on home improvements every time we go.

What we have done is transfer sums of money from our bank account in Italy, I think there is a flat fee of around 30e (from our bank in italy - nothing to receive on the other end) for the amounts we send.

I'm assuming your husband must at least have a bank account here while he is setting up the business? If he doesn't have an italian bank account, do you know someone you could trust in Sicily to send the money to? Or could you do transfers for the bigger amounts direct to the people you are paying for goods/ services?

The other thing you can do is if anyone is going (again that you trust) between the US and Italy , there is a maximum of currency (around 10k or maybe it's 5, not sure have never brought money into italy)that you can bring through without declaring. I'm not sure what happens if you birng through a larger amount - obviously you'd have to declare it but maybe there would also be taxes/ fees/ rigmarole etc.

You probably want to shop around for a better bank in the US. We use First Republic Bank which has a great ATM rebate checking account where all ATM fees worldwide are credited back to you. You have to maintain a $2500 balance and the account pays something like 1% interest. They are also flexible in terms of per diem withdrawl limits. They have offices in NYC and once you open an account you can do all your banking with them online. They offer stellar customer service as well.

Have your husband try different ATM's in Italy too! Each bank has different limits for foreign transactions. I quickly figured out which one gave out the most and always went there. Long term, he will want a local bank account to transfer into using a company like HIFX, which will give you better rates than just going to the ATM.

Since you are setting up a business, you might want to try a business account at a bigger international bank like Citibank. I had an account from them which charged no ATM fees and gave me preferred rates. Ask about their PBOE accounts.

Thanks so much! I am going to follow up on all the suggestions. It's Friday so this will have to wait till Monday, but I am thrilled to have stuff to research in the meantime.

Do we have the most amazing bunch of expats or what!

Thanks so much.

100degrees on the heat index in Jersey today.

I will report back.

It depends a lot on the bank in america what the amounts are that you can take out as well as what the fees are...

Trying to keep on top of the cheapest way to use money overseas is just as difficult as staying on top of best phone service to use. Aye-yai-yai.

Just in the past 2 days we have been calling our banking institutions and credit card companies to see who charges what for what.

I am surprised to find out that our little bank in Batavia, New York has $20 wire transfers (as opposed to $35 and $40 fees by the big boys), and is only now going from $1 to $2 flat fee to use ATMs in Italy. Our USAA account, which really tries to keep fees low for its military membership, charges 1% currency exchange fee for both credit and debit card --however, they do reimburse $15 a month for ATM transaction fees. And then, it is very common for credit cards to charge a 3% currency exchange fee for credit card purchases.

So..we will be keeping money in at least two banks in order to make use of the various fee structures depending on what we are trying to do. And we are probably going to be using Capitol One credit cards--because they charge NO fees for credit purchases overseas.

There IS a way around this. Ask your bank manager in the US if that bank can expand your w/d limit! (We do this all the time.) There may be certain qualifications to do so; ie: length of account time @ bank, average monthly balance = or greater than the w/d amt requested, etc... but you CAN ask, and it does happen.

well, just thought I'd update you all.

The limits on the withdrawls are set by the individual atm machine in Sicily. His card has a $3500 limit. He has only been able to find bank atms with a Euro 250 limit.

so it's not so bad that we are hit with two atm charges, at the atm and at my home bank. We were prepared for that and hoped that I could get all this addressed by the time we started to take out significant amounts.

I spoke to my banker and asked if there would be other charges. No, no, no, no, no. absolutely not, no.

each Euro 250 withdrawl ALSO had a $7.96 charge.

Discovered this on a friday, the banker who assured me is on vacation. You can be sure i will be there first thing when he comes in from Vacation next Thurs.

It's not that I am outraged by the fees, the banks are doing all they can to recoup their losses, but not being prepared for it....

so I will have a calm and polite conversation with him next week. If he didn't know, I could not have and should not pay. Thank heavens this is the US where customers are mostly king.

I use the postamat and banca di roma bancomats and I can take out up to 500 euro. Plus with my USBC online account there are no atm fees on either end.

You should look into getting an account in Italy with a bank to transfer funds to avoid these limits and atm fees. To get a regular account you will usually need residenza but the banks do have accounts for stranieri for fund transfers. BancaIntesa has an account for stranieri.

There are also services that do only fund transfers at good rates, such as HiFX.

Bryan, am I looking at the wrong USBC site? The site says "WE ARE NOT YET OPEN FOR BUSINESS AND HAVE NOT RECEIVED REGULATORY APPROVALS TO CONDUCT A BANKING BUSINESS."

Oops, typo. The site is HSBC USA