Millenium Free Bank Transfers from the UK

[fmm]

If I understand this correctly, until the end of last year, Millenium account holders could only transfer money free of charge from the UK through the Post Office.

As of 1st January 2011, we can now transfer from our own bank to HSBC which is then transferred FOC to Millenium in Portugal.

I believe this is quite rare to be able to send sterling to Portugal without charges.

SO unless someone can tell me different (I did phone them and double check yesterday but I may h ve misunderstood) this seems a really good deal!

[Lesley Jean]

Sorry to be dim but do you therefore have to have an account with HSBC to be able to do this or does Millennium have a holding account??

[fmm]

No - you transfer from your normal UK account to the UK HSBC account that is linked to Millenium.

[tricky]

Thank you so much for that FMM
I received a letter yesterday from Millenium in Portugese and I managed to work out the words' transfer' and HSBC
but that was about it. That should save a fair bit of money as the Halifax charge £9.00 to transfer even a small amount!

[fmm]

Same as me, Tricky. So I gave up and rang the London number and spoke to a charming Portuguese man who explained the whole thing to me. However, it sounded so good, I was convinced I must have heard wrong.

I am going to set up a payment from my Lloyds account to go to my Millenium account and see what happens. It will be far easier than my old method which was shoving everything into Nationwide then taking it out a bit at a time in Cvo and running up the hill and putting it into the Millenium. Long winded or what!!! And now Nationwide charge for taking money out of cash points, I was looking for a new method of money transfer. After all, every penny counts!!!

[Polli62]

I too received a letter from Millennium regard this. I google translated it.

From January 1, 2100 may by HSBC and an easy and convenient way to send money to Portugal.
If you have an account with any of 1670 HSBC branches in the UK, simply request a transfer to (sort code account number of)
Millennium bcp at HSBC in the UK, stating in detail the transfer of the account number to be credited into the millennium bcp in Portugal.
Your account with Millennium bcp, which shall indicate in detail its mandatory transfers! (numeric characters only).
Even not being customer of HSBC in the UK,you will be able to continue to make transfer to Portugal simply by, through your bank to make
an interbank transfer (Sort code and account number of) Millennium bcp with the HSBC United Kingdom, not forgetting to indicate in detail
the transfer, which the beneficiary's account number to be credited to Millennium bcp in Portugal.
I am still confused or maybe thick as to when the money is tranferred from your bank eg Lloyds to HSBC/Millennium holding account, how do you then give them the information at the HSBC holding account, of your Millennium account number in Portugal, as Lloyds online banking sevice doesn't cover this as far as I am aware

[fmm]

You need to put your millenuim account number as the reference and they send it to that account. According to the man I spoke to yesterday, anyway.

[maccasa]

Does this mean Millenium is now the partner bank of HSBC in portugal? it used to banco commercial (?) and the nearest branch to CVO was in Vilamoura - so convenient!

[fmm]

I don't think that has changed - as for free banking from the UK before was through the POst Office.

Anyway - I have set it up and transferred £10 over (not very much in case it gets lost somewhere on route!)

[Polli62]

Thanks fmm, had thought about the reference window but was worried was it correct, Thanks for confirming.
Wonder what the euro rate will be when money is transferred, is there a way of finding out, as I feel banks rip you off with their rates of exchange.

[fmm]

I shall report back when I get my next statement!

[Avvie]

fmm, did your helpful Portuguese man say whether this works in reverse? ie taking money from Millenium and transferring to UK.

[fmm]

To be honest, I didn't ask him, as I only ever send money over.

Try this number 0207 489 4800

[Mexican Pete]

This all sounds very positive and I don’t want to put a damper on things but surely, if you’re making high value transfers, the most important thing is the exchange rate and the commission charge a secondary consideration. We have an account at BES in Lagoa and transfer direct from our HSBC a/c in the UK via the London branch of BES (who always seem to give us an astonishingly good exchange rate) and our account in Lagoa is then automatically credited within 2 or 3 working days. There’s a fixed commission charge of £15 per transfer.

[fmm]

For me, I don;t make large transfers - chance would be a fine thing! So the convenience is the major issue for me - but as I said, I will advise the rate when I get my next statement.