Making Regular Payments Abroad

Being a home owner you can often find yourself putting your hand in your pocket to pay for something when you least expect it, and being an over-seas property owner is no different.

Luke Trevail, Senior Trader at foreign exchange specialists TORfx tells us the best way to pay for regular requirements that you have for your place in the sun.

TORfx’s Regular Overseas Payment Scheme (ROPS) is designed to take the stress out of ensuring that the ground rent is paid, maintenance fees are serviced or that the mortgage is never missed, and are worth considering prior to buying your property but can just as easily be set up once your home and you have become acquainted.

Often, particularly in Europe people looking to buy a house with a mortgage will have to do this via a bank local to that country. As such the repayments will be made in Euros, the cost in Sterling to you on this can differ in accordance with the exchange rate.

You could set up a transfer of a set amount every month through your UK bank, but the exchange rate will be drastically different than that of TORfx, and you may be liable for additional charges for transfer, which are often around £30 regardless of how much you are moving.

The TorFX Regular Overseas Payments service is a highly cost effective and simple way to send money abroad on a regular basis. The service is available for regular transfers of between £250 and £10,000 per month over a minimum period of 6 months.

TorFX can offer you a highly competitive exchange rate on your transfers, and charge 0% commission, saving you an average of 3% over the rates offered by high street banks. In addition, transfers are free of charge, compared to a typical charge of £30 for most banks. Once you set up the plan, you don’t need to do anything, the payments will be made automatically.

	Commission		Transfer Fee		Total Per Year
	Monthly	Annual	Monthly	Annual
TorFX	£0	£0	£0	£0	£0
Bank	£30	£360	£30	£360	£720
SAVING OVER 12 MONTHS = £720
*Based on a monthly transfer of £1,000

You have two options regarding your rates also;

Option 1 – Fixed Rate Regular Payments

If you require a specific amount of currency each month, (payment of a mortgage for example) you can fix the exchange rate on Euros or US Dollars for up to 12 months. At the end of this period, you can review, and fix your rate for a further 12 months. This means you know exactly how much currency will reach your account each month, avoiding the risk of fluctuating exchange rates.

Option 2- Non Fixed Regular Payments

This option allows you to take the prevailing exchange rate each month, resulting in a varied amount of currency reaching your account. If you feel the current rate is very low, and likely to improve, this may be the option for you.

Whichever option you decide to use for your payments, TorFX will ensure that you receive an excellent rate of exchange, and your currency will reach your account on your chosen date each month.

If you receive a UK State Pension but are resident abroad you can also request that the money gets sent direct to specialist foreign exchange company like TORfx who will allocate you with your own personal identification number that all payments in will have as a reference. This will allow your funds to be easily identified every month, at when your funds arrive they will be sent to your designated account abroad, or bi-monthly if that’s more convenient.

ROPS ensure you the peace of mind in knowing that your account abroad has regular funds landing, without the normal stress and work that foreign exchange may have, paying for anything anywhere in the world is now as easy as paying for utilities through your bank here in the UK, and with TORfx saving you the money on exchange rates and the time involved every month – they don’t promise to pay off your mortgage, but will guarantee to make the process that little bit easier for you!