Getting small payments from USA company to UK account with minimal charges?

[VenalWinfrey]

Dear all,

I hope someone can help me with this! I've written an album and am about to register to sell it with an American company called CD Baby, who are based in the States. Should the album make any actual sales, the funds due will be transferred to me (in dollars) at a threshold I set (e.g. when there is $50/$75 available, the company will effect a transfer to me).

My question is, does anyone know the cheapest way to do this so that the banks do not take everything in charges/currency exchange? I have a Lloyds account which I was going to use for this project, but am happy to open any other type of account if things can be done cheaper. Basically I envisage [a number of] regular small payments from the American company, and having had a quick look, it appears that most banks want to charge me £10-20 for each transfer. Which would negate the point of doing this.

To further complicate things, the profits are to be split, on arrival, between three people. This is why I would not consider using my paypal account (i.e. ideally I wanted the funds to arrive into a shared account, so everything was transparent for my friends to see - it was a collaborative project).

Does anyone have any advice for me, or can anyone point me in the direction of some information online that might help with this? I am going to call the bank now to ask, but, having been dealing with banks for some years now, I am somewhat doubtful they will even understand what I am talking about.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[woofgang]

paypal?

[woofgang]

reread....sorry....

[trainers]

HSBC has a number of offices in America and I know that sending money between HSBC in America and here is cheaper, however, this will mean you have to open a HSBC account here as well. I think the charge is around £10 so you would have to transfer bigger amounts. The other option would be to apply for a credit card in the states and use it over here, still a small charge but a lot less than £10

[BenDToy]

How about seting up one of these pre-paid cards which can be in other currencies. there is a relatively small charge for putting money in or taking it out, depending on the card but i think it is more in line with what ou need. They generally are set up the other way ie put in pounds take out foreign currency but it should be OK. Try FairFX as a start point.