Cheapest and easiest option to lodge US dollar cheque

I lodged a US dollar cheque quite recently and was charged a percentage (1.5%) on top of the exchange rate as it needed to be 'cleared internationally' by my bank. This was despite lodging a cheque a few years ago into the same account from the same source and it was lodged as a normal transaction. The cheque was made out to me and the account is obviously in my name. Are all the banks using this (imho) unfair way of charging and is there an alternative to avoid the 1.5% ? My reasoning for unfair is that the process of clearing the cheque should be the same regardless of whether it is for $10 or $10,000. It should be a flat fee plus I am paying (annual flat fee) bank charges on the account anyway for transactions such as these.

I'm sure if you read the T&C's of your charges schedule you will find it won't cover this. After all, the majority of customers will never lodge an international cheque so to follow your logic, those customers would be paying for a service never used

International clearing of a cheque is a slow process. Your bank will need to post the cheque either direct to the US bank or to a subsidiary in Ireland or somewhere else and wait for them to confirm back in that there are sufficient funds to cover the cheque and that it will not be unpaid. The Us bank then needs to transfer funds to your bank.

In the case of fees, a standard fee would cover the bulk of the effort required by the bank but high value cheques can require additional effort for security/fraud checking and money laundering checks.

thedaddyman said:

I'm sure if you read the T&C's of your charges schedule you will find it won't cover this. After all, the majority of customers will never lodge an international cheque so to follow your logic, those customers would be paying for a service never used

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Not to take this off-topic but many a person has a current account and does not lodge a normal cheque either or indeed lodge money into more than once a year. They are paying for others who do.