best uk bank for us cheques

I'm posting this here since I don't suppose this is something print published authors have to worry about very often! And because I got such great help here getting my head around the tax issues here

Does any one know of a good uk bank for paying in $ cheques? My current, natwest charged me £5.50 for the privilege last time. Most banks don't want to give you their fees when you ask in person, though my research is beginning to suggest most have £n fee for up to £100 and roughly double that for more than £100, or 0.25%, whichever is higher. So far I've established that hsbc is £6/£12, and the co-op is £4/£12. Natwest wouldnt tell me, annoyingly enough. I've heard that citibank is free if you have a $ account, but you need £2k in sterling before you can open a $ account with them. I have that, but i'd rather keep it in a nice high interest savings account! Theres some debate over whether tgats still true, but their website, as usual, offers no hints. There's also auctionpix, which will change cheques for 95p, but I'm a bit lairy of them since it seems such a strange set-up.

So, anyone got any suggestions, or experience with the above?

I'm posting from my phone, so excuse the predictive text!

Can you send a paper cheque to paypal? Because that would make life so much easier.

Some of my publishers have switched to paypal on request, but others only send out paper cheques. My bank suggested I wait until I have a few (not sure how this is meant to reduce the loss, since 0.25% of £100 plus 0.25% of £80 is still the same as 0.25% of £180), but there's also the fact that it's 0.25% or a flat fee, so no matter what the size of the cheque the bank is still walking away with a sizable chunk of my earnings. With some cheques I've got the flat fee is greater than the amount of the cheque!

Though I've had a good look around, it seems like it's going to have to be a case of sucking it up and just paying the cheques in. I'm still tempted to change my current account to another bank anyway, and it will factor in to my decision, but it's definitely not worth putting £2k of my savings into a low interest citibank account just for the privilege of being able to pay in $ cheques.

I will ask them about raising the minimum threshold, but I struggle to work out what's good to shoot for. That UK banks change price at the £100 threshhold (rather than $100, so you get to play guess the exchange rate) doesn't help, and the 'flat fee or percentage, whichever is highest' means that so far I'm losing a minimum of 10% of my earnings, rather than 0.25% (my sales are a little below the average for Loose Id mentioned on your site). I don't suppose, based on your numbers, you have any suggestions for a good minimum to request from Loose Id?

With RR, the minimum is $100, which is better for paying in cheques but quite bad when it's a short story in an anthology and you're splitting royalties several ways. I don't know if it'll ever sell enough for me to see that $100, though it does seem to be selling reasonably well compared with other numbers quoted for them. I've asked about renegotiating the amount, which was a no go, but they were more than happy to pay through paypal. Swings and roundabouts, I guess.

It is all, of course, a motivator to write more books and get higher royalty cheques. Especially when it's going to take the bank 8 weeks to even desposit the money in my account. It would just be nice if they were willing to deposit more of it!

I can't speak for all banks, but certainly with mine you can only pay cheques into your current account, so credit card accounts are out.

@veinglory: Could you keep your current account with a US bank, and open another for the UK? Obviously not a practical long term solution, but I guess it depends how long you're here for. Alternatively, citibank offer both dollar and sterling accounts, so if you became opened an account in the US before you left you might get around the £2k rule.

Digging this up briefly again: I did some research and some experiements, and I've settled on using Auctionchex myself. £1.20 no matter how many cheques you send in, and faster than my bank too! I think if you're a US expat, though, Citibank is probably the best bet, especially if you're going to be dropping back to the homeland from time to time.

I've written it up from applying from an ITIN to paying in cheques on my blog, if anyone else needs to know in the future

I sent mine off in July, and got it back in September. I think, for them, that's unusually quick (especially considering I forgot to sign it first time around!).