Having spent a daily hour watching "A Place in the Sun" during lockdown looking at different places in Spain we might like to move to; we naturally looked at loads of websites and made enquiries with estate agents in Spain. Many of these had links that ended up firing mails on a regular basis for financial services. In particular they want to help you move your money.
A bit of research and we found there was two options really as suing a UK bank account was massively expensive. You can either use a broker who will research the best rates and transfer your money for you. They will get you a good rate but you do need to know how much you want to move and when. The other option is to use a "psuedo-bank". These offer multi-currency acounts and you can control how much you move and when.
There is always an exchange risk, regardless of what brokers tell you, the money markets move rates up and down and if someone tells you they can avoid this then you should ask why are they not living on their own island in the sun!
We chose Transferwise as we got an account that could hold money in many currencies, it gives you a UK sort code and account number together with an IBAN for overseas use. There is also a debit card (costs £5, or it did then). Effectively you can use it as a normal bank account with standing orders etc. The difference between broker and Transferwise is less than £50 on £100k exchanged, but both save £100s against using you UK main bank account.
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