Making donations

Making a donation to a cancer charity via a bank transfer should be straightforward. It isn't. I checked with two different banks. One wanted the IBAN and SWIFT information, the other wanted the IBAN and BIC information. Who was right? Who knows... I went with the latter bank since they were more hlepful - but it turned out they charged me more than 10% of the donation simply to carry out the transfer (a matter of a few button presses and keystrokes). You'd wonder why, wouldn't you? I assume that if I'd made a larger donation, the amount charged wouldn't have changed, so the percentage of the donation would have been smaller. 

Would the other bank have charged less? I don't think so - indeed, it may have charged more because there was a conversion from one currency to another involved. It really doesn't seem right to charge so much for a charity donation - it seems to me that it's quite likely to reduce the amount of money going to the charity if people suddenly find that they have to pay a huge fee. 

Note to self: avoid donating to overseas charities via bank transfer. Send the cash to a friend to donate in person.