Citibank Euro Account

m567

I am about to issue a SEPA transfer to an account I hold in France. They charged me £10 for the previous one (2months ago, it was free up until March 10)
What do I tell them if they attempt to charge me £10 again?

rds,

m567

I just did a transfer and they haven't charged me £10

wpet99

Has anyone tried the debit card in Spain to make a purchase or withdraw cash, does it work ?

Billy_Boy

Used it in Majorca / Ibiza with no problems at all

System

Citi have written to me again. Appallingly, they are going to re-introduce their illegal £10 charge for outgoing SEPA transfers. They claim, absurdly, outgoing SEPA transfers aren't 'corresponding' to (UK domestic) BACS euro transfers, because
1. BACS euro is automated (true) while 'a SEPA credit transfer requires manual processing' (untrue).
2. BACS euro is 'not available for making general funds transfers'. I don't know what Citi means by this, and I suspect they don't know either. BACS euro is available for transfering euro to any bank account which has a UK BACS sort code.
3. BACS euro does not support BIC and IBAN. Of course not, and neither did the domestic credit transfer schemes in France, Germany, Spain etc etc.

I guess Citi are hoping that
(a) businesses transferring thousands of euro aren't going to worry whether Citi's £10 charge is illegal, because it's less than they were paying for steam-age 'SWIFT' transfers
(b) private customers transferring small amounts won't bother to sue to recover the illegal fee.
The industry standard for transfers of euro within the SEPA is that the customer enters them on-line, and there's no charge (or a minimal charge which is the same for a domestic or a cross-border transfer). What a pity that Citi devotes more energy to trying to evade the EC regulation than to emulating the industry standard.

I'll be looking again at current accounts available to non-residents in mainland Europe. Also, anyone know if there's any prospect of any of Santander's UK operations offering a sensible UK-based euro account?

Hazzanet

YoungNick wrote: »

Citi have written to me again. Appallingly, they are going to re-introduce their illegal £10 charge for outgoing SEPA transfers.

I suppose the only way to get this sorted once and for all is for someone to incur the £10 charge and serve proceedings on the bank to see what a court says. So much for common sense.

Hazzanet

Amusingly, they've removed BACS € from the price list too. Indeed if they intend to remove BACS € from their range of services, the SEPA fee of £10 would become valid as no free option is being offered domesitcally. Shrewd move.

http://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/banking/info/tariffandinterest/charges.htm?merchant=citi

DesG

Has anyone any suggestions for non-resident euro bank accounts that don't have lots of fees, especially a monthly fee/sending/receiving SEPA payments fee/percentage.

Had a quick check of the halifax.es site mentioned above, but it looks like they charge a percentage of SEPA payments and receipts.

I need one in any of the following countries: Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Spain.

I would add Ireland to that list, but xe.com don't seem to allow ROI in their SEPA payments for free, for some reason.

features required:

Low overall annual cost
debit/cash card (Electron would be perfect)
English language online banking
send and receive SEPA euro payments for free with online banking.
postal statements (optional)

Cheers, Des.

europa

bump - any further developments?

flortje

Hi,

Citibank did send me the standard letter a while that their lawyers are looking into it. Heard nothing from them since. But last week I did a transfer and it was still free. If they are going to introduce charges again, I will follow up my original complaint.