Euro Bank Accounts?

chanz4

bank of cyprus is free, £10 to open acc

System

Joe_Bloggs wrote: »

Any idea when the UK banks will get around to addressing SEPA.
Will they just keep on pretending that it does not apply to them.
J_B.

EC regulation 924/2009 applies throughout the EU, including, of course, the UK. It is currently enforced in the UK by the Cross-Border payments in Euro Regulations 2010.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2010/89/regulation/2/made

The UK high street banks (but not, for example, Nationwide) are all members of the European Payments Council, and receive and send SEPA Credit Transfers via one or other of the Pan-European Clearing Houses. Transfers already take only 24 hours from French banks to my Citibank account. However, UK banks don't necessarily use the name SEPA Credit Transfer.
The EC regulation requires a UK bank to charge the same for sending euro from Liverpool to Lille as it does to send euro from Liverpool to Manchester. Because UK banks cunningly abolished BACS euro, there is no cheap way of sending euro from Liverpool to Manchester. UK banks therefore can and do charge outrageous fees to send euro from Liverpool to Lille.
Successive UK governments could have applied the EC regulation (and its forerunner) to transfers of GBP. UK Banks would then have to charge little or nothing to transfer GBP from Liverpool to Lille, because they charge little or nothing to transfer GBP from Liverpool to Manchester.

Blair-Brown consulted the UK banks about that, and the banks asked them not to, so they didn't. Unlike the Swedish government, which applied the regulation (and its forerunner) to transfers of Swedish kronor.

chrestomanci

YoungNick wrote: »

Citibank don't (currently!) charge euro account holders for withdrawals in euro from any VISA cash machine in the eurozone. (Though they don't make this clear on their website.) In practice, you probably need both a euro account and a sterling account with them. You can then move euro to and from GBP instantly on-line, with only a small spread (1%, I think). You get one VISA debit card. You phone to have it linked, at any one time, to either your euro account or your GBP account.

Thanks

So in practice I could transfer money from my RBS account to Citi£ for free, then transfer it over to Citi€ for 1%, and be able to withdraw cash on the go?

If so, magic.

System

qwertymz wrote: »

So in practice I could transfer money from my RBS account to Citi£ for free, then transfer it over to Citi€ for 1%, and be able to withdraw cash on the go?

Yes - though post #17 points out that my 1% is wrong.

A downside with Citi is that (amazingly) Citibank International plc (the UK banking operation) is not a member of BACS. They use a Lloyds TSB sort code. And for the last couple of years, Citi has been going to offer Faster Payments in three months time. (It's always three months time, never now.) The latest moving target is June 2011.
http://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/banking/customerinfo/usingyouraccount/movingmoney/fasterpay_faq.htm?merchant=citi

Slothy

If you join HSBC Premier (probably only worth it if you qualify for free) you can open Euro / dollar accounts etc. I have their Malta euro account and am able to transfer money between UK and Malta for free, instantly, at pretty decent rates. The Malta account does charge me an annual fee for online banking. HSBC Malta does support SEPA transactions, but depending on the transaction amount they do charge a nominal figure per transaction.

VictimOfImpersonation

Tonight to transfer EUR to GBP between Citibank current accounts one rate offered online a short while ago was UK£ 1 to EUR 1.1343195.

To transfer the other way I am offered EUR 1 to UK£ 0.91756882

I make that broadly a 4% spread between buy and sell so if you are simply converting one way it costs you about 2%, does it not?

What are HSBC offering you tonight Slothy?

chrestomanci

Thanks for all your help everyone.

Almost went for a CitiBank, but apparently they charge £10 for transfers from a non-UK € account to their own... Will keep on hunting!

System

qwertymz wrote: »

apparently [Citi] charge £10 for transfers from a non-UK € account to their own

Not so.

Are there any fees applicable for incoming international fund transfers into Citibank-UK?
No, there are no processing fees for crediting funds into a Citibank-UK customer’s account.

See http://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/banking/customerinfo/usingyouraccount/movingmoney/faqs.htm?merchant=citi#fastesthttp://

The (rapacious) 10GBP fee is for outgoing SEPA Credit Transfers.