Where can I find a no frills dual or triple currency current account?

RosalindStewart

Can anyone help me find an inexpensive triple (or dual) currency current account? I am annoyed at the bank charges that everyone charges and even the pre-paid currency cards don't seem to offer very good value.
HSBC offshore has such an account, but to avoid the £20/month charge you have to maintain a very high monthly balance of something like £30,000.

We go to the Eurozone several times a year, and use PayPal for bigger ticket items like renting a self-catering house, but even they whopped on a 20 Euro charge for a simple £1100 transfer.
I see that Santander has a pre-paid credit card which looks interesting, but you can't move sterling to euros with internet banking for same-day money transfers, can you? Recently, I bought a Travelex Cash Passport from Sainsbury's but the rate they gave me wasn't very good; E 1.07 to £1! Where can I get the better rate of E 1.10/£1 and NO bank charges?
Does anyone offer a Euro chequebook, debit card, and $ one as well? With no or at least lower monthly charges?

I know that foreign exchange firms offer better rates, but you have to pay a charge for each transaction and also you can't do internet banking that way.

I'd be very interested to see if there is a product out there I haven't found yet.

Thanks in advance and looking forward to your replies -
Rosalind

Olipro

easy answer, get a Nationwide Flexaccount.

use the card to withdraw cash when you're in the country, you will get the spot rate (or 1% commission if doing it outside the EEC) - cheapest places to get significant amounts of cash tend to be Post offices rather than banks, and of course, if you have an account with the post office/bank they simply process it as if it's a cash withdrawal from your card without any actual banknotes being involved.

dzug1

I don't think that accounts of the sort you want exist - if they did it's certain that there would be charges when moving currency into the account so all you would be doing is changing the point at which you incur charges, not avoiding them at all.

Olipro's suggestion is the best idea. If you live in their area the Cumberland Building Society do something similar.

gt94sss2

RosalindStewart wrote: »

Can anyone help me find an inexpensive triple (or dual) currency current account?

Who do you bank with at the moment and which Euro countries do you visit?

Various banks offer accounts which multi-currency accounts of some type including HSBC (and HSBC Premier) and Lloyds TSB but as you say many of these accounts have monthly fees and/or you need to open them with a considerable sum of money (even if you later move it)

Another option is to open a local bank account abroad - many big UK banks have links abroad and can help you with this. For instance, HSBC owns both European and US banks, while Lloyds, Barclays and Halifax etc all have branches in France and/or Spain. This would ensure you got USD/EUR debit cards and cheque books etc..

If you wanted to, you could even open a HSBC Premier account (free for 6 months), use that to open HSBC accounts overseas and then downgrade - though you may then lose the ability to do instant transfers via internet banking between our accounts them.. or HSBC will do it for non Premier customers but may charge a one off fee.

Regards
Sunil

System

Citibank.co.uk offer euro and US dollar current accounts. If you open a Citi GBP current account as well, you can do instant on-line transfers between your GBP, euro, and dollar accounts, at exchange rates with (in my opinion) a fair spread. Oddly, you get only one debit card, but you can phone to switch whether this is linked to your euro or GBP account. In the eurozone, you can use your debit card (if you've linked it to your euro account) to withdraw (subject to a daily limit) euro from VISA ATMs without fee. You can also, of course, make purchases in the eurozone debited in euro. You do not get a euro cheque book.
If you open joint accounts, I assume you get two debit cards, but if so I do not know whether, on a given day, you can have one linked to the GBP account and one linked to the euro account.
Citibank advertise a charge for SEPA Credit Transfers to transfer euro direct to a bank account in the eurozone. They suspended that charge, because they had been offering BACS euro transfers free, and the purported charge for SEPA Credit Transfers was therefore illegal. Now that BACS euro transfers have been abolished, there is (AFAIK) no UK domestic benchmark for the fee for transferring euros within the SEPA. Citi were therefore threatening to activate their fee. I don't know whether they have, because I haven't had occasion to transfer euros recently.
Alternatively, if you frequently visit a particular country in the eurozone, you could consider opening a bank account in that country. AFAIK, banks in the eurozone charge an annual fee for debit cards, and may impose annoying daily and weekly limits on withdrawals.

RosalindStewart

Thanks Sunil, for your reply. I'm going to look into Citibank now as it looks a better deal.
Rosalind

RosalindStewart

Thanks, YoungNick, for your pertinent and informative reply. I'm certainly going to look into a Citibank account now.
Regards
Rosalind

RosalindStewart

Actually I closed my HSBC offshore account this summer as they were charging me £25 per month for the privilege of using them as my bank! This is their charge for all customers with less than £60,000 for dual currency accounts. Not a good deal.

Rosalind

Baldur

Olipro wrote: »

easy answer, get a Nationwide Flexaccount.

use the card to withdraw cash when you're in the country, you will get the spot rate (or 1% commission if doing it outside the EEC).....

Only true until 01/11/2010, when Nationwide are applying an across the board 2% plus £1 transaction fee for ATM withdrawals, both in and outside the VISA Europe sphere of operations.

oxenryd

Baldur wrote: »

Only true until 01/11/2010, when Nationwide are applying an across the board 2% plus £1 transaction fee for ATM withdrawals, both in and outside the VISA Europe sphere of operations.

To my knowledge, when olipro wrote his original answer in March, no one knew this was going to change.

Baldur

oxenryd wrote: »

To my knowledge, when olipro wrote his original answer in March, no one knew this was going to change.

Yes, my post was more a 'heads up' for the OP than a reply to olipro.