My post is on currency exchange and is aimed at those who bring money into Italy from other currencies.
Many use a currency broker when buying property(let me know if we should write a post on this topic). But did you realise you can use one for smaller transfers? The minimum amounts vary with brokers, but I have spoken with a few that were happy to do transfers of as low as £2k. This can be amounts at random and does not need to be on a direct debit.
One company I spoke with was
'Smart Currency'. They would allow you to specify the rate you wanted to target(being realistic of course) and they would complete the transaction. They would also transfer to your Italian account for free and this would save me £20 in bank charges.
As a typical benifit, I would say you can be €70 per £1000 better off this way, plus any savings on bank charges. I base this on a spot check where Barclays offered me 1.41 and Smart money would have got me 1.48.
For me, I would recommend this facility for doing a number of lump sum transfers.