Metro Bank International Payments Review 2026: Fees, Exchange Rates and Is It Good for Sending Money Abroad?

The fixed fee is fairly clear

We checked where the charges fall. A SWIFT international payment costs a flat £25, while a euro payment sent by SEPA is just £0.20, so the headline fee is easy to read.

One thing is worth knowing. A shared-charge payment can still lose an intermediary-bank fee on the way, so the recipient may receive a little less than the sum you sent.

The real cost is the exchange rate

This is where a bank quietly earns its money. Metro does not give the mid-market rate; it applies a published margin of 3% to the rate, and on a larger transfer that dwarfs the £25 fee.

We put that in context. A 3% markup is the least punishing of the high-street banks we have reviewed, yet it still costs far more than the fixed fee, so the rate is the number that decides your total.

You can see the rate, but it is a poor one

Credit where it is due. Metro shows the exchange rate before you confirm the payment, so you are not sent blind on the conversion.

The catch is the level, not the visibility. The rate you see sits below the interbank rate a specialist would pass on, which is exactly the gap this review measures.

We model sending £10,000 to euros, a realistic size where the FX margin really bites. On 30 June 2026 the pounds to euros market rate was about 1.1604, so £10,000 is worth roughly €11,604. Rates move daily, so figures are illustrative.

Read it like this. Even with a fee of just 20 pence on the euro route, Metro's margin means £10,000 lands as about €11,256, roughly €301 behind what the same amount buys through a market-rate app such as Wise.

We find the pattern holds at every size. The bank is safe and convenient, but it is an expensive way to move money abroad, and the gap grows the more you send.

How sending works

Metro sends money straight to a recipient's overseas bank account by SWIFT, or by SEPA for euro payments. You set it up in the Metro Bank app, online banking, a store or by phone, entering the recipient's IBAN and BIC.

It is bank-to-bank only. No cash pickup and no mobile-wallet payout, so the recipient needs a bank account. SEPA euro payments can arrive the same day, while SWIFT payments usually take two to five working days.

The high app limit helps

Here is a genuine plus. The app lets you send up to about £21,000 a day internationally, so a £10,000 transfer goes through in-app without a trip to a store.

Above that ceiling it gets manual. Larger payments need a store visit with photo ID or a phone call, which is slower but rarely an issue for everyday transfers.

Your deposits are covered

Here is the genuine upside of using a bank. As a UK deposit-taker, Metro is covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which protects eligible deposits up to £120,000 per person if the bank were to fail. That limit rose from £85,000 on 1 December 2025.

We stress the distinction. The money-transfer specialists safeguard your funds by ring-fencing them, but that is not the same as FSCS deposit protection, so a bank balance carries a layer of cover a transfer app cannot match.

Protection survives the ownership drama

This matters given Metro's history. FSCS cover attaches to the bank's licence, so the change of majority owner in 2023 does nothing to weaken the protection on your deposits.

It does not make transfers cheap, though. FSCS protection does nothing to narrow the FX margin, so a safe home for your savings and a cheap way to send them abroad are two separate questions.

Who runs it

We read the FCA Register. Metro Bank PLC is authorised under firm reference number 488982, authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by both the PRA and the FCA as a deposit-taking bank.

Its ownership has changed. After a near-miss in 2019, a 2023 rescue led by the investor Jaime Gilinski left his Spaldy vehicle as majority shareholder, and by 2026 he was reported to be weighing a sale.

How your money is protected

The protection here is the strong part. Eligible deposits are covered by the FSCS up to £120,000 per person, and complaints can go to the Financial Ombudsman Service, both standard for a UK bank.

Fraud rules apply industry-wide now. Since October 2024 banks must reimburse most authorised-push-payment scam victims, and Confirmation of Payee checks a new payee's name before you send.

The turbulent history

We cannot skip the obvious. A 2019 accounting error wiped out much of Metro's share price and forced a capital raise, its founder left, and in 2024 the FCA fined the bank about £16.7 million for weak checks on money-laundering risk.

That history still shows. Deposits stay FSCS-protected throughout, but the run of trouble is a fair reason to weigh Metro carefully against steadier names.

The reviews worth weighing

We looked at the customer view, and it reads poorly. On Trustpilot Metro scores about 2.3 out of 5 across thousands of reviews, a weak mark, though its mobile app rates far higher on the app stores.

The complaints have a theme. Reviewers flag service problems and poor value on international payments, while the app and store access draw the warmer words.

Getting started. International payments are open to current-account customers through the app, online banking, a store or by phone. You need the recipient's IBAN and BIC, plus their bank details.

Authorising it. Payments are confirmed with the app or your security details, and a new payee can trigger extra verification. Amounts above the daily app limit need a store visit or a phone call.

Support. Metro offers stores, UK phone lines and in-app help, the kind of human backup an app-only service does not match, though none of it lowers the transfer cost.

We rate Metro against the services people weigh it against. A low-cost specialist handles overseas payments far more cheaply, and our money transfer reviews are the place to start. You can also sense-check today's costs with a live comparison of today's rates and fees.

For cost, a specialist wins clearly. Our Wise review covers a service at the mid-market rate with a low, clear fee, which beats a bank's margin on every overseas transfer we model.

Among banks the picture is closer. Our TSB Bank review shows a fellow FSCS-protected high-street bank with similar fee-plus-margin pricing, so the choice there rests on which bank you already use. If you are sending euros for a property abroad, weigh it on our send money to Spain page. The bigger high-street names charge similarly, so our HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds and Virgin Money reviews are useful side by side.

As a bank, Metro does the safety job well. Your deposits carry FSCS protection, the app takes large payments, and store and phone support are there if you want them.

What holds it back is value and confidence. The 3% FX margin makes overseas payments dear, and a weak review score plus a run of scandals dent trust in the brand.

We land it at 2.5 out of 5. Metro is a safe place to keep money and a convenient one for the odd payment, but for sending money abroad cheaply a low-cost app is the better tool.