New monthly fee: CitiBank foreign currency current accounts (EUR & USD)

Jew

I have been banking with CitiBank for a while now and have been generally pleased with my USD account.

I was informed by a banker at CitiBank today that currency accounts (EUR and GBP) will soon incur a monthly fee and will no longer be free. He doesn't know how much yet and when it will happen.

What are your thoughts on this move? Any free alternatives?

RetiredInThailand

I've never been attracted to Citibank because they pay little or no interest.

To pay little or no interest and charge a monthly fee also just makes me even less likely to use them.

LloydsTSB offshore pay interest, but charge a lot for incoming/outgoing payments (they are revising the charges structure at the moment, I think).

So my EUR go to banks on the continent that charge no fees and pay interest. Most of them have been mentioned recently in here.

rockitup

I was a big fan of Citibank for many years and their US Dollar account was handy when travelling to the US each year for my hols

Citigroup's value got hit particularly hard during the financial crisis and since then they have brought in quite a few changes which just seem to penalise their customers. I have noticed this with my Citi accounts in the US and SE Asia too.

If they do bring in this monthly fee then I suspect it will not do them much good in the long term as lots more customers will leave.

It would be interesting to see if they will bring this charge in for Citigold customers too, I never signed up for that package yet as I am not interested in paying a 3% initial fee when i pick my own funds.

I reckon I will just keep my US Dollar basic checking account going which I opened in Nevada some years ago and make a transfer once a year via a currency broker for my travelling and accommodation expenses. Time to say goodbye to Citibank UK then

chexum

This is happening from 29 Jun 2012.

"We are introducing a monthly account fee of £5 for standard foreign currency Accounts, except where certain criteria apply.

"As an existing foreign currency Account holder, you will not have to pay the monthly fee provided, from 29th June 2012 (if):

"-You hold a Citigold Current Account (...)
"-You hold a Citibank Plus Current Account (...)
"-Your foreign currency Account holds an average monthly balance of £2000 (in foreign currency equivalent) or more

"If (you don't meet) any of the above criteria, we will normally charge the monthly fee for each foreign currency Account."

Apart from the principle, the worst I find about this is that: you'll need to pay for *each* of the accounts; and the fees are in pounds sterling, so it would vary all the time.

Clearly, a Citibank Plus @ £8 a month is cheaper than £10 for an EUR+USD account, so I presume this is where they want people to go. However, I'm not convinced they would not hike it to £15 from next Spring...

They seem to have jumped the shark:
- No free current accounts for some time
- Fee for paying in an USD check (fee in pounds for an USD account)
- Deteriorating FX rates
- Now fees for running the FX accounts

Stompa

chexum wrote: »

They seem to have jumped the shark:
- No free current accounts for some time

Well they're not charging me a fee ..... yet.

chexum

Stompa wrote: »

Well they're not charging me a fee ..... yet.

Sorry, I meant no free current accounts if you want to open one as a new customer and cannot pay in £1800 (or £5000 ) a month.

Stompa

chexum wrote: »

Sorry, I meant no free current accounts if you want to open one as a new customer and cannot pay in £1800 (or £5000 ) a month.

Sorry, I knew what you meant. It's just that I'm expecting them at some point to force me to change to one of those new current accounts (with fee).

jen245

Im just going to open the current account, and cycle the money through as I do my Halifax and Santander accounts, and as a bonus, get the free travel insurance. I like my US $ account, the rates are excellent, been getting just over $1.60 and $1.61 the last week or so, which is a heck of a lot better than Id get with travellers cheques or any of the prepaid cards, so im not giving it up just yet

Jew

chexum wrote: »

This is happening from 29 Jun 2012.

"We are introducing a monthly account fee of £5 for standard foreign currency Accounts, except where certain criteria apply.

"As an existing foreign currency Account holder, you will not have to pay the monthly fee provided, from 29th June 2012 (if):

"-You hold a Citigold Current Account (...)
"-You hold a Citibank Plus Current Account (...)
"-Your foreign currency Account holds an average monthly balance of £2000 (in foreign currency equivalent) or more

"If (you don't meet) any of the above criteria, we will normally charge the monthly fee for each foreign currency Account."

Apart from the principle, the worst I find about this is that: you'll need to pay for *each* of the accounts; and the fees are in pounds sterling, so it would vary all the time.

Clearly, a Citibank Plus @ £8 a month is cheaper than £10 for an EUR+USD account, so I presume this is where they want people to go. However, I'm not convinced they would not hike it to £15 from next Spring...

They seem to have jumped the shark:
- No free current accounts for some time
- Fee for paying in an USD check (fee in pounds for an USD account)
- Deteriorating FX rates
- Now fees for running the FX accounts

That's terrible. That's for reporting back.

I will be closing my USD and EUR accounts as on some months, they stand empty, and others they would have more than the required, but I don't feel like working for my bank account — it should be working for me.

The way I see it:

I don't bank with Citi to put in more work — time is money, I kindly give them my money in return for a service. And if that's not enough to them, then bye bye.

OllyM

Just called and closed my US Dollar account

rockitup

One alternative would be to have a US Dollar account with a bank branch based in the U.S. Different banks have different minimum balances for fee-free operation.

The above would only be worth doing if you plan to use an FX broker (i.e. for larger FX conversions)

£2k minimum balance isn't too bad to avoid the monthly fee, but it is the way that Citibank and others squeeze extra money out of account holders using other tricks