Not sure if my cohorts in Britain can send money to my Swiss account using the IBAN number.

Anyone done this?

Yeah but they will need the address and name of your bank as well as the IBAN number.

Yes you will need the IBAN and BIC code.
To safe you some hassle, in case you are with Natwest, do the transfer yourself by internet banking as if you fill out the form at the branch they'll mess it up

Yes they do. In most cases you'd have to fill up a lengthy form though. I did it with Natwest and all they asked for was the IBAN, beneficiary name and address and I didn't fill any forms

As above, yes - but they charge an arm and a leg for it. Unless you need the funds urgently, it's typically much cheaper to pay in a UK cheque to your bank here.

I have done it and my bank (Halifax) handled it easily.

Agree with above comments. I would add that the major issue I've had is transferring large amounts.

Basically, they (well, Nat West anyway) won't let you transfer large amounts (10,000 GBP). I can't remember the limit.

In these instances you have to write a letter to them... you know, those funny squiggles on a piece of paper made with one of them things called a pen...

Fax and email not acceptable. So if you need something done in a rush good luck.

Que, major issues? I transfer money all the time between my UK and CH accounts... I transferred £500 the other day and it cost me a tenner and appeared in my account (PF) the next day. It's easy peasy, and standard daily practise for any major bank.

I'm pretty sure the figure is GBP 10,000 and it applies to all banks and BSs. Basically any transactions of that amount or over trigger the "could be money laundering" flag and the institutions have to check that the transaction is legit.

if not, i'll open my own bank as there would seem to be a bit of a gap in the market

Do, do make sure that the IBAN you are given by your Swiss bank is the one that stipulates that the transfer is direct from GBP to CHF.
Dirty bu99ers at Natwest Visa scammed me with that one for a while. What they do is go: GBP -> EURO -> CHF, or the reverse. I only noticed this when a failed attempt to transfer money (I had written BERKS instead of BERKSHIRE, go figure) resulted in a +/- 500 CHF shortfall in the amount reimbursed!!
For the princely fee of CHF 20 I asked the ZKB to investigate the transaction, and they sent me a full report in short order (Natwest were in full BS denial mode, claiming amongst other things that it was all the fault of the intermediary clearing bank, and they did not know who this was.). ZKB confirmed that my money had gone CHF -> EURO -> GBP -> EURO -> CHF, leading to a shortfall of some 200 Euros. They also confirmed that this transfer route was specified in the IBAN, that this was wrong, and that the clearing house involved was Natwest's own. Armed with this report and threatening the Wrath of God, I got reimbursed and compensated with no arguments whatsoever.

Bar Stewards, the lot of them,

Jim

Not in CH - you can transfer any amount out of CH to a UK account, as long as that account is in credit to the amount you wish to transfer. So basically Nat West were happy to take the money but not to give it back.

NatWest changed me £20 for the transfer. I filled out one of their special forms. English cheques can take up to a month to process if you try to cash them at your Swiss bank

I have only sent money the other way, and I found it to be cheaper if the sender paid the charges for both sending and receiving the money.
If we talk about small amounts, your best bet may be to use Paypal, but I learned the hard way, that I was limited to transfer GBP 200-250 per transaction to my account, and totally GBP 400 per year, unless verified.
Just make sure, that your paypal account is in both CHF and GBP, as they will otherwise convert to USD first.

Doc.

A few years ago, I ask First Direct to transfer a reasonable sum into the bank account of a car dealer, for purchase of, funnily enough, a car. Went to pick the car up - money isn't in their account. After a lot of to-and-froing, with the bank saying that they don't guarantee it will be in the destination account within three working days, they found that they'd forgotten to send the request over to the foreign exchange section...

To be fair, they waived the bank charge, and wrote and faxed through a letter to the dealer and the dealer's bank, so that I could drive the car away that day.

And now... expecting payment for some work I've done for a UK company. My client authorised the payment two weeks ago. I talked to them today, and they had a look and it hadn't left their account. So they talked to their bank and... someone had forgotten to send the request to the foreign exchange section. I don't know who my client banks with.

On balance, I'd say British banks do know how to send money using the IBAN, but aren't always very good at it.

Indeed. I once queried the charges (15 GBP back then) for receiving money from CH (i.e. I had done everything over the internet here in CH). To which I received the snooty reply:

"Well, I don't think 15 pounds is very much for us to charge for an international transfer..."

Like they had to do anything anything at all FFS! You would have thought that I should be gosh-darned-grateful that they would credit my account with my money and for all the hard work they put into receiving the cash - i.e. none!

Last time I transferred a large amount I used an English cheque; cost 10CHf & took about a week.

That was after i found barclays internet banking does not allow you to transfer funds abroad

Citibank in the UK charge GBP 25 for a SWIFT transfer (which can be in GBP or CHF or whatever else) or GBP 10 for a SEPA payment (which would be in Euros) - but it is easy enough to do once you have the IBAN number and the BIC details.