Looking for a bit of advice in unknown territory for me.
I have business accounts with Starling, Revolut and Monzo (all free), but only use Starling for any transactions - the others are just back ups, so to speak.
We’ve landed our first client outside of the UK and we’ve been asked if we’d accept payment in Euros. I’ve no objection to this, but I’m not sure on the best way to approach it from a banking perspective.
Starling mentions that the GBP account will incur a 2% forex fee. Monzo says that these payments are unreliable and may not even arrive (according to their blog post).
For some reason, I thought Starling dropped their monthly fee for the EUR account (maybe that’s just personal?), but it’s still there for businesses. Only £2/mo, but I’m tight
I should probably say, it’s just a one-off at this point as it’s a tester. But if all goes well, this could be a regular thing, in which case, I’d probably go for Starling for ease if nothing else.
Fairly competitive amongst fintechs, so if that’s who you want to stick with, don’t mind taking the hit, or even passing it on to the client, then it won’t be a bad option.
Compared to your options from traditional banks, it’s pretty expensive since there are plenty of options for avoiding fees.
My business primarily services clients in the EU and the US. We have a few in the U.K., but since Brexit have been phasing that out, even shut down the physical office a year ago.
We don’t pay any fees on payments from our clients, but I never moved to a fintech for the business accounts. It’s free to receive payments from within the EEA with Barclays.
Our US clients pay their bank the fee due, otherwise Barclays would charge a flat £6 fee for those. It’s waived because the sender pays it.
