Paying in US$ cheques in the UK?

I'm due a cheque from the Bank of New York in US$. It's for a reasonable sum of money so the exchange rate used is more important to me than any per-cheque charges. At the moment I'm just planning on paying it in to my bank (Barclays), but I'm sure the combined brains of T2W could advise if I've missed a better way of maximising the return. Thanks in advance.

Open a US Dollar current or instant access savings account with your bank and pay it in there.

Then shop around for a foreign currency dealer ( who will not rip you off ) with the best rates. I doubt if Barclays will give you the best rate.

Ship the money off to a reputable dealer with the best rate, change it to GBP and then have the dealer ship the money back to your Barclays GBP account.

There are many dealers advertising on the internet but I am not sure which ones are reputable and which ones are not. Some of them have a habit of quoting you a great rate but once they have your money, they change it to a poor rate and you are left with the decision of getting the money back to your bank ( which is a pain ) or going with the poor rate. This happened to me once.

I am currently in the same position as you. I need to change US$ 75K which are currently sitting in a USD Current account at HSBC.

Anybody got suggestions as to good forex dealers ?

XEtrade (https://www.xe.com/fx/) claim they beat every other competitor's exchange rate nine times out of ten.

However I have no experience of using them so I can't vouch for this.

They are located in Canada, not the UK, which may be a disadvantage.

The best rate on the high street I've found is at M&S believe it or not.But they will only change up to £5000 worth of dollars and vice-versa,and they won't give out a sterling cheque...has to be cash for some reason.
Then,with the receipt from M&S you can go round to Thomas Cook and they will "price match" it so you can get the same rate and they will give you a cheque.
In this way you can easily change quite large sums...but you would need USD in cash,not in cheque form.

my UK bank takes cheques drawn in dollars from US banks, but it takes 4 weeks to clear and they bum me on the exchange rates - 800 pip spread

twalker pointed me to a firm called voltrex who are FSA reg and seg accounts, take any currency on deposit for you and perform cash swaps for a 20pip spread over the interbank rates. I've been using them for a few months and can say they are first rate.

Arb, you beat me to it. After many years of sending money back back and forth from US accounts I find the service from Voltrex the best bet in terms of service and exchange rate. Contact Alastair Constance who manages the fx business.
http://www.voltrex.com/

Thanks all - some useful advice there: I'll follow up Voltrex and opening a USD offshore a/c.

Jack o' Clubs

Did you manage to sort yourself out ?

The rate has gone a bit sour in the past few days and I must admit that my dilly dallying has left me in a bit of a quandary.

To change or not to change now !!??

sterling

Good evening

I kknw that this is a shot in the dark since the last post on this thread was some time ago but here goes anyway.

I am due to open an account with tradestation and intend to deposit $25000. Does anyone know the best way of going about this?

Thanks

Tafita