[benpbenp]

For this kind of transfer I recently discovered and have saved tons of money using TransferWise. Their model is to charge a moderate upfront fee (0.5% for £200 and up), but then after that they complete the currency conversion always at the exact mid-market rate. The fee may sound like a lot at first, but as you discovered, all the banks "hide" their fee in atrocious exchange rates, such as the 4% mark-up you experienced.

Some downsides are that they don't support every currency yet (cf. https://transferwise.com/support/customer/en/portal/articles...), and they can be significantly slower than banks.

Anyway, here, use my link and I get some money. (and you get a free transfer up to £3000): https://transferwise.com/u/85ec4

[hkmurakami]

Hey this looks great! Getting gouged for 4% on a recurring basis was stomach churning for me, so I'll definitely look into this more (and will use your link when doing so).

Anything below 1% and I'm totally happy.