I currently live in New York and want to open a business checking account. I receive one or two checks from England each month that are for small amounts, and the fees that banks charge to process them take a substantial portion of the check. How can I avoid these fees?
If you and your remitters can arrange to have those payments made from a dollar-denominated account at a U.S. bank in the U.K., you should avoid the fees altogether. Whether the cost and aggravation of making that change would offset the benefit you might realize on this end, remains to be seen.
Another possibility that might work better would depend on the willingness of your remitters to provide you a credit card number that you could use if you accept credit card payments in your business. If you enter the payment amounts periodically on sales drafts at this end, all of the foreign exchange risk will reside with the cardholders.
Published on BankingQuestions.com 6/05/08
BankingQuestions.com is a free service made possible by the generous support of our advertisers. Advertisers are not responsible for site content. Please help us keep BankingQuestions.com FREE by supporting our advertisers. When you see an ad for a product or service you may have an interest in, click through to learn more.
Accounts
Article
Q&A
Podcast
Video
Blog
Discussions
PDF
Powerpoint
If you and your remitters can arrange to have those payments made from a dollar-denominated account at a U.S. bank in the U.K., you should avoid the fees altogether. Whether the cost and aggravation of making that change would offset the benefit you might realize on this end, remains to be seen.