Quick Question About BACS

[Jamie101]

Hello

I know pretty much nothing about BACS to be honest with you, probably because I'm not in the UK (Ireland) and I've never heard of anyone using it here. So, I want to start accepting payments using BACS since PayPal fees and so on are quite annoying.

But has anyone dealt with BACS being paid in to an Irish bank acc? Mainly I just want to know 1) Is it basically instant? 2) Are there any charges? 3) What info do you need to pay someone? (eg. IBAN, etc etc)

Still don't have access to my bank acc online so need to sort that first.

Bit random, but hopefully someone here knows something about this

Thanks,
Jamie.

[accelerator]

I would consider opening a separate Sterling account if I were you, as that is likely to involve less charges. To do this, you need to find a bank that is a member of UK clearing. I expect Ulster Bank is, because they are owned by RBS I believe. You might be able to open a UK GBP account with an Irish bank as a resident, or you might be able to open a UK GBP account with a British bank as a non-resident. It might also be worth investigating international banking services.

Whenever I get paid by BACS, it always seems to appear on my account pretty fast (same day usually).

To accept a BACS payment, all you need to do is provide someone with the relevant details of your GBP bank account, i.e. sort code, account number, account name.

In theory you could provide an IBAN number and accept GBP payments to your EUR account, but that is likely to involve higher transaction fees, plus losing some money on the currency exchange.

[vizzo]

Only disadvantage is you have to keep checking your account to see if money goes in, whereas paypal send you a nice little email

[Jamie101]

Thanks for the replies.

No so sure if I'd be able to set up a bank account that deals with just sterling, might think about it though.

Maybe I should find out what fees will be involved if I receive payments from the UK.

And I don't mind that I'd have to check it all the time, as long as it goes in the account within an hour or so I'd be happy!

[peter_w]

Originally Posted by Jamie101

And I don't mind that I'd have to check it all the time, as long as it goes in the account within an hour or so I'd be happy!

Even UK bank to UK bank transfer won't go in within the hour... There is a new EU regulation which says it has to happen within 1 working day, and occasionally it will happen within that hour, but more often than not if it is one bank to a different bank (e.g. Natwest to Barclays) it will take a day. Theoretically, that same legislation SHOULD mean payments from a UK bank to an Irish bank should also only take 1 day.

Fees wise, you will likely be looking at an exchange commission for the pound to euro transaction. Around the 10 to 15 euro mark, I'd guess.

[Jamie101]

Originally Posted by peter_w

Even UK bank to UK bank transfer won't go in within the hour... There is a new EU regulation which says it has to happen within 1 working day, and occasionally it will happen within that hour, but more often than not if it is one bank to a different bank (e.g. Natwest to Barclays) it will take a day.

Oh, for some reason I always thought that BACS were pretty much instant. Don't know why I thought that.

[Aaron Clifford]

Originally Posted by Jamie101

Oh, for some reason I always thought that BACS were pretty much instant. Don't know why I thought that.

FPI (Fast Payment Initiative) is what you may be thinking of, this is near on instant bank to bank, not all banks do it though.