Withdrawing foreign currency cash from a UK bank account

[erolz]

I just thought I should share this bit of 'info' with members here.

If you withdraw cash in local currency (non sterling) via cash point machines from a UK bank account to any substantial degree you MUST get yourself a nationwide account. The nationwide is the only bank (actually still a mutual building society and not a bank) that I know of that uses 'money market' rates for currency conversion and places NO charges on such transactions.

To give an example of just how much difference this can make I withdrew 150 YTL from the same north Cyprus cash point machine from a UK Lloydsttsb account and immiediately afterwards withdrew another 150YTL from a Nationwide UK account, using the same cah point machine.

Lloydstsb used a conversion rate of 2.370 AND charged me a £2.00 charge - making the total cost of this withdrawal £65.29

Nationwide used a conversion rate of 2.435 and made no addition charge at all - making the total cost of this withdrawal £61.59

This made it £3.70 cheaper to withdraw the same 150YTL from the same cashpoint machine at the same time via Nationwide account than LLoydtsb account.

As most of my income is UK based and the vast majority of which I withdraw here in YTL using Nationwide will save me around £40-60 per month!

I would alos add that even for purchases there is a major advantage in using Nationwide card as again they use 'money market' rates and again place no charge on such transaction. Lloydststb (and most other banks I believe) use uncompetetive exchange rates and lloydstsb also places a £1.00 charge even on (non sterling) purchases with their debit card!

So moral is if you withdraw local currecny cash from UK bank accounts to any substantial degree (from any country) get yourself a nationwide account and enjoy the savings.