Any charges for lodging an E*Trade € denominated cheque?

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ClubMan

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If I sell shares and get E*Trade to send me a € cheque (not sure on what bank this will be drawn) are there likely to be any significant charges for lodging this to an Irish (€ denominated) account?
 
From my limited experience there could be charges and a considerable delay in receiving cleared funds; it will depend on what bank the cheque is drawn on.

If the cheque is drawn on one of the Irish Clearing Banks then it will be no problem, however, if the cheque is drawn on a Continental European bank (eg Deutsche Bank / BBVA / Rabobank etc etc) it will need to be sent for value on a "collection" basis.

Because there is no centralised European Clearing system what happens is that your receiving bank send the cheque for value from the issuing bank - ie they effectively cash it themselves - once they receive the money they then lodge it to your account. Bank of Ireland used to charge for this; I'm not sure if they still do.

I recently sent a euro cheque to a UK company, Expansys.ie (I had received assurances that they had a euro denominated account; it turns out they have but they don't use it!!) - it took three weeks for the funds to clear as they cheque was sent for "collection".

Despite the additional cost I reckon it would be much easier and faster for ETrade to SWIFT the money to your Irish bank account rather than send a cheque.

There are other AAMers that use ETrade - maybe they could advise on charges and timings for payments from ETrade
 
I've found USD cheques from my personal ETrade checking account pretty easy to handle here. EBS took the full 6 weeks to give me value for such cheques, but they don't process FX cheques any more. My own branch in NIB gave me same-day value for some reasonably large ETrade cheques recently, though I had been chasing them to get good FX rates on those occasions.
 
Thanks for the feedback. I supposed that I was really wondering how the different ways of getting money from E*Trade might compare in terms of (a) time/delay and (b) charges and which might be the "best" overall. As far as I can see the options are:
  • US$ cheque posted to the account holder (US$15 E*Trade charge)
  • € cheque posted to the account holder (US$15 E*Trade charge)
  • Wire transfer (US$?) (US$20 (?) E*Trade charge)
Last time I asked in PTSB about this they hadn't a clue what I was talking about and were of no use in terms of apprising me of the charges that might apply. Any advice welcome. Thanks.
 
In my experience (but it has been a number of years so I'm not sure if it still valid) there is little difference between USD and EUR (non Irish Bank Issued) cheques in terms of costs and time to receive cleared funds. If you look [broken link removed]at PTSB charges they charge a min of €8.50 PLUS agents fees for each cheque sent for collection (agents fees can vary widely from bank to bank and country to country)

I think Rainyday was very lucky to get same day value from his ETrade USD cheque from NIB (he must be a very important customer!!).

For SWIFT payments (ie International money transfers) there is a cost for the receiver and the sender. The ETrade cost you know is US$20 but you would need to check with PTSB on what their charges are to receive a SWIFT payment. You will probably need to talk to someone in their business account or international payments dept to get the actual figure and will probably be based on the amount of the payment ie a small percentage - in my experience the customer service staff in a branch or on a telephone do not have the knowledge to hand to be able to tell you the charges on receiving a SWIFT payment as they wouldn't see too many. Once again, from recollection, the fee isn't huge but could be €10 to €20 minimum. Just to note, on the link above to the PTSB charges they reference a fee of €31.50 for non-euro payments - my reading is that this is a minimum fee for making a payment and not necessarily for receiving one

Hope this helps
 
Re: Any charges for lodging an E*Trade € denominated cheque?

The fee of €31.50 for non-euro payments is for outgoing payments.

The last time I got a wire from the US I paid no fee on my PTSB account but the conversion rate from US to € was not the best.
 
Quick update - in the end I got my bank's IBAN, BIC/SWIFT code and US banker's details in order to set up a wire transfer and will see how that goes.
 
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