We do phone call up transfers, but I woke up this morning thinking about all those movies where the terrorists force someone to make these huge transfers while sitting in a forest using a laptop to their Swiss bank account.

So I was wondering if this is at all possible, that is to make a transfer from the US to an Italian bank using the internet. It's easy to do within the US. So far I haven't seen a way to do it.

I think it would depend on your bank. The Federal Reserves Bank of NY does them, but I don't know about other banks.

We transfer via the internet from our Australian bank to our Italian one all the time. The source bank just need an online banking option, the Italian bank just needs a SWIFT code.

Banks with online banking options usually place a maximum limit per daily transfer. To guard against terrorists in forests with laptops. Unless they want to sit in the forest for days on end.

Graeme, just curious but I found here in France the cheapest way to transfer money electronically is with an IBAN code. I'm planning to transfer my rent to Italy and the geometra sent me his IBAN, not Swift. I recently transferred a healthy sum for 3€, but it was €-to-€. How does that match up with Swift or it is the same?

SWIFT or BIC is the old telex era code. IBAN is newer and includes a check sum to preclude errors. I would use the IBAN if you know it. If you do a transfer with BIC or SWIFT, the sending bank simply looks up the IBAN in their computer anyway.

How odd that my Italian bank is using outdated technology.

No, not a value judgement there, your bank is not outdated. But the IBAN has pretty much replaced BIC or SWIFT in Europe. Your bank is simply taking the SWIFT code and cross referencing to the IBAN. It's like typing an address into your browser and the ISP converting to the IP address.

Well we do us the IBAN number for the phone transfers, but so far no internet possibility, maybe I'm going to have to make some phone calls. Actually the phone transfer is very easy, maybe even faster than using the internet, but I can't do it using a wifi connection in the Dolomites while skiing.

quote:

Originally posted by Graeme:
Banks with online banking options usually place a maximum limit per daily transfer. To guard against terrorists in forests with laptops. Unless they want to sit in the forest for days on end.

Can't speak for Oz, but UK banks seem to make up the rules on this as they go along.

My regular High St bank has a transaction limit of £10,000/day. But my online savings bank has a £50,000/day limit. The currency broker who transfers ££ into €€ from the UK to Italy for me has an unlimited daily transaction limit. Go figure.

Maybe the guys in the forest know this too ?

The maximum daily online transfer with Australian banks is usually $OZ5000 (a bit over €3000). That's for your basic everyday common or garden bod like me. Rupert Murdoch is probably allowed more. Well, he would have been, if he were still an Australian citizen.