How can I buy euros via bank transfer in Austria?
I recently moved from the UK to Austria (Graz) and bought a prepaid travel card from the Post Office beforehand. Unfortunately this does not work in any bank or ATM I can find, and I do not have a valid UK bank card, so I cannot withdraw any money and only have about 2 euros left in cash.
The Post Office has agreed to refund my prepaid card to my UK bank account, so I want to buy Euros via a bank transfer and collect them from some shop or bank as soon as possible. Is this something that one can do in Austria? Or would it be quicker to set up an Austrian bank account and make an international transfer from the UK?
And, as a side question, does anyone here have any experience at getting a prepaid Post Office "travel money card" to work in Austria?
Best Answer
In addition to WesternUnion suggested above:
1. If you can wait around 9 working days for a card delivery and/or want to move money regularly, you could consider ordering a Revolut card.
It's a VISA physical card that you can top up using your UK bank account, or debit card or credit card for free.
Once you have the physical card delivered, you can use any ATM to withdraw cash or simply use it at the shops.
Fees for ATM withdrawals: up to £200/month free, above that it's a 2% fee. Please don't select a "dynamic currency conversion" in the ATM but choose to pay in EUR instead of GBP, otherwise the ATM will charge you more.
Fees for card payments: Free (but like with the ATM, the shop is able to select dynamic currency conversion which would charge you more, this happened to me only in small corner shops normally).
2. If you can open a bank account in Austria or an N26 bank account which might be easier to open, you can either use Revolut or TransferWise to transfer money from your UK bank account or bank cards into euros to your Austrian bank account. This normally takes about 1 working day I believe for the transfer. Otherwise, you can also simply transfer money internationally without using a service such as Revolut or TransferWise but it will be more expensive.
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Answer 2
You could get a bank account at Revolut, that‘s an online (startup) bank which doesn‘t charge any monthly fees but also provides multi-currency accounts. A Revolut account includes not only a SEPA IBAN/BIC account, which you can use to pay everywhere inside the Euro area (including receiving your wage for ex.), but also a debit card and bank account details for nearly all currencies (including account/sort code for UK). You could then just transfer GBP from your UK account to your Revolut account, use their (very affordable) exchange service to change the GBP into EUR and have a bank account charged with Euros. You can either use the included VISA debit card or go to an ATM and withdraw the cash anywhere in Austria. Check out the Revolut website (which btw is a British startup), they really have highly competitive prices - even compared to regular bank accounts - but provide more features than most other banks. - Btw. welcome to Graz!
Answer 3
If you need some cash fast, you should be able to get money from an Austrian ATM using you UK card but that may cost you some exchange fee. When I was in Czech i got Kronas with my Austrian card and iirc that costed about 3€. For long term it would be better to get a card with euros either from some Austrian bank or an online bank like N26 or previously mentioned Revolut.
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