Couldn't one get round this problem by asking to be paid once a year rather than once a month? Then the cheque would be big enough to be worth cashing.

It might work - Lloyds charge a flat fee rather than percentage so it would obviously be an advantage to pay in as much as possible in one go. It would have to be in one cheque, though - no good saving up all your monthly cheques and taking them in at the same time, since they charge per item. :) It would depnd whether EC was willing to pay annually rather than monthly....

As discussed elsewhere, I've opened an account at the Halifax to pay in dollar cheques. I was assured by three different officials that they don't charge for this. I'm just about to pay one it, so we shall see...

Let us know!

After a bit of research I have found that Citibank do not charge for paying in Dollar Cheques. Aparently it takes 13 working days for the cheque to clear, but there are no charges. Lamia, How did paying in the cheques to the Halifax go?

It's a long, long story. But I'll cut it. After opening an account, with some difficulty, I went to pay in a $25 cheque to a branch in North London. The woman took it and said, "You know this may attract a small charge." It was as if a small charge had been put under me. I ranted and raved about having been told by three different individuals that there would be no charge. Anyhow, I studied the form they gave me, which I'll replicate after this. Apparently most cheques can be 'negotiated' which means they don't have to go back to the originating bank. If they can do this, Halifax won't charge for the small ones (and mine went through like this) If they do have to clear it 'collect' there's a charge which would probably wipe out the payment. There doesn't seem to be any way of finding out which banks they can 'negotiate' with; this was Wells Fargo and I guess the bigger banks are all right. This is what it says on my receipt: Cheques drawn in foreign currencies ...have to be cleared by our international Banking department. Most of these cheques can be cleared by 'negotiation'..... Some types of cheque must be sent abroad to the foreign bank and cleared by 'collection'......when a cheque has to be cleared by collection, our International Banking will write to you before proceeding. (There's a lot I've missed out about cheques in sterling to be drawn on foreign banks, and how long it takes before you can withdraw funds.) The fees for clearing foreign cheques are as follows Sterling amount up to £30: Negotiate-Free, Collect-£18 £31 - £2,500: Negotiate-£10, Collect-£18 £2,501 - 10,000: Negotiate-£35, Collect-£40 I rather think the drawback with Citibank is that you have to keep something like $5000 in the account to get the free cheque cashing.

With Citi bank if you have an American Dollar account then you have to have a "relationship" worth £2000 each month to have free banking. If you have a normal Uk account then you can pay in American cheques - I checked and phoned them! Feel Free (literally) to phone them yourself to explore this - 0800 00 88 00

Yes, but you have to pay in a regular monthly credit of at least £1,500 to get the cheque card etc. That would mean moving my main account from First Direct, and I don't want to do that. The Halifax is fine for me, I've got a small account with a few hundred pounds in it.

Check with your bank to see if they have a US Dollar account available. I used to sub-contract several US firms and they paid in US cheques. Here in Canada they had an odd system. The cheque would be deposited and then held for some indeterminate time to see if it bounced, not if it cleared. Go figure. However once my bank assumed my checques were reliable they let me have the money then. There were no handling fees on that account. If I deposited on my regular business account the fees were minor.

Getting a US Dollar account isn't the problem Mister Naked - it is getting the money changed into pounds - then they start charging handling fees. If we are talking things like a monthly royalty cheque which might be quite small then the fees charged can make it not worth cashing. And the "odd" system you had in Canada is actually the usual system for international cheques.

But surely, if you have a US dollar account you need only pccassionally tranfer to pounds, c.f. with each checque. That would save a lot of money.

That is certainly an option Veinglory, perhaps Tavaran could look into it. I just did a quick search to find out if there were any viable things for me if I was getting paid in Dollar Cheques Personally I want my spending money and I want it now - that pretty pair of shoes I want may not be there in a few months! LOL

just a thought
if Bank of America doesn't require citizenship to open checking accounts, could you open one without ever walking into a branch? That way you could have all your checks deposited through the mail then use the Visa/Mastercard debit card that comes with your account.

Nice suggestion and thanks, but II don't think we have Bank of America over here (or at least, not in Birmingham where I live).