Forum Moderators: martinibuster
(I've asked Google to hold my cheque this month because I'm pretty sure that the Abbey National will just laugh in my face if I try and pay a dollar cheque into my account).
www.citibank.co.uk
You can apply online....
BTW, dollar cheque = cheque in dollars (not a one dollar cheque). :-)
Oh and as Google uses Citibank, I believe they take around 5 working days to clear - might be wrong about that as I never check!
[edited by: cantillion at 6:19 pm (utc) on May 5, 2004]
Google does not send out checks for under $100.
It sure does, but only once a year :)
Karl
It shouldn't be too long if I get Google to keep saving my balance until I get $2000 tho.
Thanks for your advice everyone.
Come to think of it, lots of British webmasters arriving at Cheapside on a particular day of the month to cash their Googlecheques, sounds like the basis for a flashmob.
Most UK banks will accept USD cheques. The only thing you may want to hunt around for is the one that is going to take the least off you (in commission charges).
I use TSB, and have no problems cashing my cheques. They cleared my last ones in about 2 working days.
Graham
HSBC will cash your $ cheque.
It takes about 5 days to get credited.
There is a standard charge about £6.00 for 1 cheque and £8.00 for two cheques.
dregs33
At the beginning of last year you could get £6944 GBP for $10,000 USD, Today you get just £5586 GBP!
A difference of over £1400!
So it's a good idea to hold on to the Dollars in the hope that the Pound weakens against the Dollar, if you can...
"(I've asked Google to hold my cheque this month because I'm pretty sure that the Abbey National will just laugh in my face if I try and pay a dollar cheque into my account)."
Abbey National charge £10 to pay in foreign currency cheques if you have their Abbey account - I'm sure they won't laugh at you.
However they do have the following provisos:-
1) The cheque has to be payable to you
2) The cheque must be less than sixth months old
They use two different methods of clearance - with the first your account is credited in about 6 working days - with the other they send the cheque back to the issuing bank and it can take 4-8 weeks. There's more information on their website.
I bank with HSBC. I pay my foreign currency cheque(s) in each month with no problems. If you use foreign currency cheque negotiation they pay the cheque into your account the day you pay it in - so you don't have to wait for your money. They do however have a sliding scale for this - depending on the cheque amount (when converted to UK pounds):-
Their charges are:-
Sterling Equivalent Charge
Up to £50 £4 per cheque
£51 - £200 £6 per cheque
£201 - £500 £8 per cheque
£501 - £5,000 £14 per cheque
£5,001 - £10,000 £20 per cheque
£10,001+ £30 per cheque
Dollar Equivalent
(exchange rate 05/05/2004 £1=$1.79304)
Up to $89.65 ------------ £4
$89.66 to $358.60 ------- £6
$358.61 to $896.52 ------ £8
$896.53 to $8965.20 ---- £14
$8965.21 to $17,930.40 - £20
$17,930.40+ ------------ £30
The percentage of the cheque taken up in charges at each band is:-
8% to 100%+
3% to 11.7%
1.6% to 4%
0.2% to 0.4%
<0.3%
In other words - cheques less than $7.17 are not worth paying in (unless it's a dollar account etc etc etc)...
There are other options of course too - but cheque negotiation probably suits most UK-based Adsense publishers.
Foreign currency accounts generally require a large opening deposit don't they? eg. $2000. Does Citybank?
I just wish the current exchange rate wasn't so poor... come on USA, sort out your budget deficit!
The money was credited to my account in a few days, however they reserve the right to take it back if something goes wrong with the transatlantic negotiation (unlikely). So the money isn't "safe" for a few weeks.
The only problem I had was finding someone in the branch who knew which form to fill in!
Depends a lot with your standing at the bank. Most managers have discretion over these things. We opened a US$ account with $100 - and I am certainly not in a major financial centre and bank with a local NI (not UK wide) bank! Saved us a packet in currency conversion charges and commissions over the past year. US$ cheques are credited the same day with a proviso that they may remove the credit if dishonoured (never happened yet).
[edited by: makemetop at 9:00 am (utc) on May 6, 2004]
these are per transaction, not per cheque so pretty reasonable.
Also discovered you can open a dollar savings a/c (paying cheques in through branches). Doesn't need anything to set it up. Same charges as above for paying in cheques. So can sit on $ and wait for exchange rate to move.
If I were you I would let my fingers do the walking and call each bank up and find out directly.
Some banks will allow multiple cheque deposits if from the same country so it can save you money to keep the cheques from G and deposit 3 or 4 in one go as you may only be charged once for that. Of course you would need to calculate interest rates etc.
By the way ,why is google not able to pay by direct deposit, wire etc. Some time ago it was mention,(on this forum I believe)that google might introduce more payment options, nothing has been said since.
It is a fact that cheques get lost in the post(or are stolen), take time to reach us, (maybe google likes that),banks charge what they like and then take their time to credit our accounts.
Google, please consider other payment methods asap , other companies in the same field do manage quite well electronically, cheques are a primitive way of paying your publishers.
