We are living on my husbands Rail Road Retirment checks, which are deposited into a bank in NY every month. We then, via internet, request a wire transfer of the money into our bank account here in Italy. We are charged at least 30 ($? Euro?) a month in fees for this.

We have investigated whether or not the LIRR can deposit his checks directly into our Italian bank account but they have told us the routing numbers here don't have the right number of digits.

Does anyone have a solution or suggestion? At this point, every little bit of extra money helps!

My military retirement pay is direct deposited to the NY Federal Reserve Bank, converted to Euro at the US gov't rate, then transferred for free to my Italian bank account. I'd check with LIRR and see if they can deposit to a US bank with an Italian branch (or a branch in the US of an Italian bank).

This happened to me - my bank put extra zero's in or something and it solved the problem. I would ask again for your BIC/IBAN and Swift codes of the receiving bank. It could be that simple, and should be. The BIC is the most important and is the really long number - it includes your bank account and sort code in it a long with all the other numbers.

Diane--maybe your bank will allow you to write a check from your bank in the US in USD? Our bank allows us to do that. We can use the funds immediately with one fee or wait 16 working days for a lower fee. Or is it possible for you to wait and transfer only once every 2 months?

Bill 2--how does one have their direct deposit go to the federal reserve bank? Do you open an account there? Do you have to keep some money there between deposit/transfer? Can anyone do this and does an account (if needed) need to be opened in person? Is the US government exchange rate better than the normal rate? Of course, how could it be any worse? Thanks, Sz

I don't know- Defense Finance and Accounting Service handled all that- I just sent them a form with my Italian bank account details. The rate is supposed to be the best, as it's the rate the gov't uses when transferring megabucks between countries.

Diane--will you bank allow you to write a check in US dollars? Our bank allows that and we can either use the funds immediately with a higher fee or wait 16 working days and pay a lessor fee. Or is it possible to wire your funds every other month?

Bill 2--how does one have a direct deposit to the Federal Reserve? Do you need to open an account there? Can anyone do this and does it need to be opened in person? Is the government exchange rate better than the normal exchange rate? Of course, it probably can't be any worse! Thanks for the information. Sz

quote:

Originally posted by Sz:
Bill 2--how does one have a direct deposit to the Federal Reserve? Do you need to open an account there? Can anyone do this and does it need to be opened in person? Is the government exchange rate better than the normal exchange rate? Of course, it probably can't be any worse! Thanks for the information. Sz

I don't know- Defense Finance and Accounting Service handled all that- I just sent them a form with my Italian bank account details. The rate is supposed to be the best, as it's the rate the gov't uses when transferring megabucks between countries.

quote:

Originally posted by Diane:
We are living on ....little bit of extra money helps!

hello,

wiring euro only , not usd !
and use an Poste italiane bank account !

Diane, not to be nosy, but how much are you transferring each month? We generally just make cash withdrawals at the Postal Bancomat (where the limit per withdrawal is €500).

With our credit union ATM card there is no fee, and we usually get a rate that very close to what's being shown on TV, so I'm guessing that's the interbank rate. For us, all we need to withdraw each month is some spending money for the market and small places who dont' take credit cards, and money for our monthly mortgage, so we probably make 2, sometimes 3 withdrawals per month.

Everything else goes on our credit card (paid off in full each month), so we get the best interbank rate on those charges as well, with no additional fees using our Capital One or credit union MasterCard.

i can sympathise, we use hifx and this morning we got a rate of 1.16 euros to the pound, luckily my hubby said no, if we use our english debit card at the atm we are charged 10 pounds to withdraw 250 euros, it's a nightmare, we withdraw weekly as we are paid weekly, anyone have any ideas, because the fees/exchange rate is killing us.

Hi, I'm new on the forum was just browsing around on Google to get some help on schools.

However, I read the thread about transferring on funds abroad and 1.16 is a terrible rate, I transfered a slightly larger amount yesterday and got 1.25. I use a company called International Foreign Exchange, I think their website is www.internationalfx.com they seem to know what they are talking about. Hope that helps.

thanks for that, we have sterted getting the money out of the atm's, with the horrendous charges this works out at 1.22, i'll take a look at that site, cheers again.

quote:

Originally posted by Barb (and Art):
Diane, not to be nosy, but how much are you transferring each month? We generally just make cash withdrawals at the Postal Bancomat (where the limit per withdrawal is €500).

With our credit union ATM card there is no fee, and we usually get a rate that very close to what's being shown on TV, so I'm guessing that's the interbank rate. For us, all we need to withdraw each month is some spending money for the market and small places who dont' take credit cards, and money for our monthly mortgage, so we probably make 2, sometimes 3 withdrawals per month.

Everything else goes on our credit card (paid off in full each month), so we get the best interbank rate on those charges as well, with no additional fees using our Capital One or credit union MasterCard.

Hi, Barb

I just got through reading through a long thread from 2006 about getting lower fees for transferring money, and read your detailed answers, and thought to myself, "I would love to know what Barb and Art are doing THESE days to get the lowest rate!" I thought about PMing you and, lo and behold, found this newer thread.

I am still wondering about postal banks, postal bancomat, etc. I am totally unaware of what these are--but my mind is thinking that inside the post office they have tellers and also perform banking functions. If I am right, I am wondering if the postal banks are in every town (or at least in Pienza, which is going to be my new town)--and if they operate (from a banking standpoint) in a consistent manner all over the country.

In the 2006 thread, Art was talking about the use of "dollar accounts"--which is also new terminology to me. What exactly is a dollar account--which bank in Italy does one have such an account, and are you still finding such an account to be useful?

I cannot tell you how helpful I find your postings to be. Thanks so much.

quote:

I am still wondering about postal banks, postal bancomat, etc. I am totally unaware of what these are--but my mind is thinking that inside the post office they have tellers and also perform banking functions. If I am right, I am wondering if the postal banks are in every town (or at least in Pienza, which is going to be my new town)--and if they operate (from a banking standpoint) in a consistent manner all over the country.

Yes they are everywhere. In my little village the ufficio poste/banca is one small room, and has limited banking services. But 10km away in the main town of our comune, there is a larger poste/banca where you can do everything.
See http://www.poste.it/en/bancoposta/conti/current_account.shtml

Barb said she can obtain Euro 500 per atm transaction at the postal office bancomat. This is outstanding! Is it common all over in the post offices to be able to obtain this amount at one time?

As I mentioned, some tiny villages don't have a full service bancaposte- mine doesn't have an ATM machine. But 10 km away is a bancaposte with ATM. Yes, you can get 500 euro there.

Unfortunately at this point the €500 limit at the Postal bankomat is unnecessary since our U.S. bak limits us to $500/day. Right now that translates into about €320.

As for the dollar accounts, we had one of these accounts at Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze. We would transfer money from the states, making sure to tell our U.S. bank NOT to convert the money into euro. The dollars would 'sit' in the dollar account and if we needed euro we'd call the bank, tell them we wanted to convert X number of euro, and they'd call us back with the rate for the day, whihc we could accept or decline. If we accepted the dollars were converted and deposited into our checking acct.

Doing this allowed us to (potentially) save money in 2 ways: first, by transferring large sums from the U.S., we cut down onthe number of transfer fees. Secondly we were also able to choose when we wanted to convert the dollars in euro, so theoretically this saved us money...assuming the dollar didn't just continue to decline. HItting the high spots isn't easy!

The charge for the dollar account was €50/year. Because we no longer transfer large amounts we've now closed the dollar account.

Barb and Bill,

Very helpful!! Grazie.

Barb, my banker here in the states just increased our daily limit per card per account (or was that JUST per account????) to $1000. Won't yours do the same if you ask?

Claudia

Possibly, but I don't think so. Anyway, we're allowed 5 withdrawls per month without a fee and usually only need to make withdraw 2 or 3 withdrawals, so it's not a problem.