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

Jew

diamonds wrote: »

Strange !

Access to Foreign Currency Accounts linked to just one card1

"With a Citibank Plus Current Account you have the opportunity to additionally hold Euro and US Dollar current Accounts with no monthly fee, giving you access to three currencies all from your one Citibank Visa Debit Card"

http://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/banking/bankingproducts/currentaccounts/sterling/plus/usdeuros.htm?merchant=citi

But you pay for the Plus account.

maimee_magic

Totally agree with Jew. Customer services is atrocious so I too will be closing my euro a/c now they've introduced the fee. Can anyone tell me which online
banks do a free euro a/c?

gglaze

Hi guys. I've been with Citibank UK for many years, and one of the main advantages has been the multiple foreign accounts with instant global transfers to other Citibank locations - i.e. I can transfer to my Citibank US (in USD) and Citibank Poland accounts (in GBP, then convert to PLN locally for example), without any unexpected fx rate charges to worry about, and when I click send on the Citibank UK site, the money shows up pretty much instantly when I log in to the other Citibank sites, and is available immediately for me to use from either my card, or to send payments out. I'm not sure if any other bank offers this kind of globally integrated experience? If so I'd love to know...

Also the ability to have a single card to carry around, and being able to quickly link it to any currency, is great. Shame I have to call in to do this - or is there an easier way now?

When I received all this info in the mail last week, I started reading about everything, and among other things noticed the USD and EUR current accounts - I guess this is a new thing? I have been using the savings accounts for years, so didn't realize there was any better option. So now I'm also very interested in those... I suppose the idea is that, whereas so far I've only been able to use my card to pull out cash at the cash machines, I'll now be able to use my card to pay for goods and services directly, anywhere I could use a credit card? (in Europe or USA I mean).. if so I'm also very interested in this.

Now like everyone else, I'm very disappointed about the new monthly account fees. Also I've noticed the deteriorating FX rates - I used to get the absolute best rates (at least for USD) on the Citibank site - but now I get much better rates (including a $15 wire fee) to just do all my USD transfers on xe.com, so unless I absolutely need the money instantly, I usually do it on xe.com now, which means my USD account is a lot less useful. But it's still good to have in emergencies. And since I've never worked out how to get another EUR account, I don't really have other options for this - but sounds like I will need to go read up on other options. Anyone want to provide a quick link to point me in the right direction for that?

So, my question about all this is: what about the idea of doing Citibank Plus, but cycling money in and out each month? I pay my salary into a different account (HSBC), but could I then transfer that into my Citi account (it would come from an account in my name) and would that be counted as the required monthly credit? Also, my monthly salary is less than the required 1800, as I am mostly on quarterly dividends instead of salary.

So what if I transfer about 1200 out of my Citi account each month, and then have the full 1800 coming back in? And can I transfer straight to my HSBC account, and then straight back, or do I need to cycle through a third account? Do they even care at all about this? Do they have measures in place to monitor for this kind of thing, and will they kick you off Citibank Plus or charge you the £8 fee if they detect it, or what will happen?

And for that matter, if I can do this with 1800 cycling around, why not do it with 5k cycling around and get the benefit of Citi Gold? Perhaps none of this is possible. Is anyone already doing this or is it a common practice?

I'd really like to not lose my foreign accounts (I have 4 or 5 of them) unless I can find a good alternative, at least for the EUR one; and I'm certainly not going to start paying monthly fees for banking.

But yes, if I find alternatives for everything, there is little incentive for me to stay on Citibank at all, other than that I have a long history with my account there! The primary reason I chose Citibank over all the alternatives many years ago, was they seemed to have the best foreign currency account offerings. Their website is terrible, service has never been great, and I'm sure I could be happier with another bank if all I need is GBP current and savings. My HSBC account is already slightly more decent. (But would really like to be able to download proper pdf monthly bank statements rather than just csv or copy and paste or whatever - does any bank offer a pdf download, that looks exactly like their paper statement?) I can do this with tesco and mbna credit cards, for example - and pretty much all my US accounts have this.

Jew

gglaze wrote: »

But yes, if I find alternatives for everything, there is little incentive for me to stay on Citibank at all, other than that I have a long history with my account there! The primary reason I chose Citibank over all the alternatives many years ago, was they seemed to have the best foreign currency account offerings. Their website is terrible, service has never been great, and I'm sure I could be happier with another bank

So true.

Let us know what you find out about alternatives for EUR and USD.

gglaze

I'm lucky to have family living in the US, so I've had US accounts with BofA and Citibank US for a long time. Citibank US is particularly good for the instant global transfers from Citibank UK (but not in the other direction if I recall?!), but like I said, I really haven't even used this in a while now as it's cheaper to just transfer through xe.com.

Really no idea what to do about EUR though - even when I lived in Italy I just used my Citibank UK (EUR) account because it was easier than going through all the beaurocracy of setting up a new account in Italy.

gglaze

Bumping thread, really need advice - does anyone know about cycling payments out and back into accounts and whether banks are checking for this, or if that is a safe way to meet the minimum deposit requirements?
Thanks!

rockitup

gglaze wrote: »

I'm lucky to have family living in the US, so I've had US accounts with BofA and Citibank US for a long time. Citibank US is particularly good for the instant global transfers from Citibank UK (but not in the other direction if I recall?!), but like I said, I really haven't even used this in a while now as it's cheaper to just transfer through xe.com.

I have just found out about the problems when you start with a Global Transfer from Citbank US to Citibank UK or wherever else.

From the UK you just set up the payee as requested (maybe a phone call is required these days too) and then you can transfer up $10,000 daily for free.

But from the US to here, Citibank impose a limit of $1,000 per day within the first 60 days after you set up each Global Transfer. After that the limit is $10,000 per day.

Just posting this to keep any of you aware, I have only just found this out. The alternative is to request a Foreign Wire transfer if the money is needed urgently ... but it costs! Poor old banks are so skint these days

jen245

gglaze wrote: »

Bumping thread, really need advice - does anyone know about cycling payments out and back into accounts and whether banks are checking for this, or if that is a safe way to meet the minimum deposit requirements?
Thanks!

I do this already with my Halifax and Santander accounts with no problems, and I'm going to do it with Citi when I eventually open a GBP current account. There is no requirement to have a salary paid in, only to pay in a minimum of £1800, which I'll cycle in and out from one of my savings accounts, and to set up 2 DD's. I'll do Paypal, and maybe my mobile, job done. Doing this I'll avoid the monthly fees, get free worldwide travel insurance, and top rates on my holiday cash

Jew

jen245 wrote: »

I do this already with my Halifax and Santander accounts with no problems, and I'm going to do it with Citi when I eventually open a GBP current account. There is no requirement to have a salary paid in, only to pay in a minimum of £1800, which I'll cycle in and out from one of my savings accounts, and to set up 2 DD's. I'll do Paypal, and maybe my mobile, job done. Doing this I'll avoid the monthly fees, get free worldwide travel insurance, and top rates on my holiday cash

What is the downside of cycling cash like this?

Can it all be set up to be done 100% automatically? How can that fail?

jen245

You can set it up automatically, but i do it both automatically and manually. For example, my main bank account is with Natwest. I have a standing order set up that goes into my Halifax account just after I get paid (for the free £5, and £5 cashback on my CC). I then log into Halifax and manually move it out Santander (for 5% interest) by FP, then manually from Santander back to Natwest. It only takes a few minutes. I'll be ditching Santander soon, and will just replace it with Citi.
You could do it totally automatically with standing orders, but with varying pay days and bank holidays, you'd have to keep changing the dates to avoid bouncing them and incurring charges, so I just have one SO, then move the rest myself, much easier.