Euro account

fatkev61

Anyone know of a decent euro account I can open with minimum fuss. I will be receiving a payment of approx €500 per month and want to be able to draw the money out at my own convenience. Don't want to pay lots of charges

ray123

citibank.co.uk

System

Citi euro current accounts provide a debit card which you can use to draw euro at Visa cash machines anywhere in euroland without any charge. In the UK, you can (afaik) only withdraw euro at their London branches. Their customer service is appalling; they never answer a question right first time. If you withdraw GBP at a UK cash machine, they use a rip-off exchange rate.

You can phone up to get them make a BACS direct credit from your euro account to another UK bank account. Their price list says this is free for transfers both in GBP and euro. For GBP, they then use a not very rapacious exchange rate. Contrary to what you might think, BACS does do direct transfers in euro. But, in practice, I haven't yet found anyone at Citi who knows how to do a BACS direct transfer in euro.

The handout they have in branches, and their website, only tell you (complicated and incomplete) details for getting people to pay euro into your account using the obsolete SWIFT system. However, they do (as they are legally required to) give you the IBAN and BIC which are all you need to get people to send euro to you as SEPA transfers, normally free from all countries in the EEA, ie the EU with additions including Switzerland.

Unbelievably, Citi has just purported to introduce a rip-off charge of £10 for a SEPA transfer from a Citi euro current account to a bank account elsewhere in the EEA. This is illegal under EC Regulation 2560/2001 on cross-border payments in euro. You can pay it 'under protest', and then sue in the County Court to get it back.

97trophy

YoungNick wrote: »

Unbelievably, Citi has just purported to introduce a rip-off charge of £10 for a SEPA transfer from a Citi euro current account to a bank account elsewhere in the EEA. This is illegal under EC Regulation 2560/2001 on cross-border payments in euro. You can pay it 'under protest', and then sue in the County Court to get it back.

I agree that the charge seems high. Interesting info thanks.

Unlike Nick, I have found Citibank service and call centre to be fine.

Hazzanet

YoungNick wrote: »

Unbelievably, Citi has just purported to introduce a rip-off charge of £10 for a SEPA transfer from a Citi euro current account to a bank account elsewhere in the EEA. This is illegal under EC Regulation 2560/2001 on cross-border payments in euro. You can pay it 'under protest', and then sue in the County Court to get it back.

I've written to them on this subject pointing out the 2003 APACS guidance (an organisation of which Citibank is already a member!)

97trophy

Hazzanet wrote: »

I've written to them on this subject

please let us know how you get on.

thanks

System

I formally complained to Citi about their purported, but illegal, charge for outgoing SEPA transfers in early March. I've just received their standard letter saying they need more than 4 weeks to respond. I suspect that a lot of head-scratching is going on! It would be interesting to know (but I guess we never will!) if Citi's pricing wonks failed to ask the compliance wonks, or were Citi's compliance wonks asleep?

After a mere week or so of the hapless people in the call centre giving me what I guess appears on their screens, the completely false information that BACS only does direct credits in GBP, I have, at last, got Citi to do a BACS transfer of a test ten euro. Free, as it says in their current price list (called a 'bill payment').

Citi are of course effectively bankrupt, although, presumably as part of an under-the-counter bailout, HMRC have just moved large chunks of their banking to Citi. (But not payments of taxes in euro, which stay with the Bank of England!) Citi are obviously desperate for more revenue. My guess is that they will introduce a charge of, say, £5 for both BACS and SEPA transfers of euro. That would be legal, but an obvious ripoff for BACS, because the cost to the banks of BACS transfers is tiny, provided they allow customers to input them themselves. At present, Citi does not enable euro current account holders to make BACS, let alone SEPA, transfers on line. It can't be difficult; most French banks, for example, already offer on-line SEPA transfers.

At present, as I said before, Citi euro current account holders making outgoing SEPA transfers can pay the illegal £10 charge 'under protest', demand it back, and sue in the County Court if they don't get it.