best bank card to hold abroad

jillybobblesbombom

My son is about to work abroad & earning. He needs an account he can put his (euros) money in abroad for safety,& have access to use in this country . He would not qualify for a credit card but needs maybe post offic account??

PeeJay1980

If it is just access to money in both countries then any account that holds a Visa debit card should do the job!

PeeJay1980

Sorry, just to add there would be cash conversion and transaction charges to take into account, dependant on which bank was used.

Edwardia

Some banks allow you to have current accounts in several currencies and one debit card and to switch between them with one phone call. Citibank does it for example. Or he could bank locally and just withdraw euros there bring into UK and change into sterling at post office.

RonLeroy

jillybobblesbombom wrote: »

My son is about to work abroad & earning. He needs an account he can put his (euros) money in abroad for safety,& have access to use in this country . He would not qualify for a credit card but needs maybe post offic account??

If you go work abroad the best bet to open account in that country in local bank you will avoid plenty of banking fees.

1. If you earn money in euros and put them into british account you will loose on conversion rates from euro to pound. Also if your employer abroad pay into your british account it will be additional fee for money transfer.
2 If you use your british card abroad you'll have to convert your pounds back into euros. Some british banks even charge for every transaction abroad, you'll pay additional small fee for every time you use your card to buy something.
3 If you use british account to withdraw money abroad you'll be charged for cash withdrawal.

If you use local bank and account in euros you'll avoid all conversions, all fees for money withdrawal and small fee for buying with your card.

When you decide to move back to uk just transfer all money from foreign account to your british account using bank transfer, you'll be charged for bank transfer only once. You loose less if you transfer one big sum of money rather than many small amounts.

Master card has better conversion rates between euro and pound than visa. Because mster card convert euro to pound directly, but visa first convert euro to usd and after that from usd to pound.

In general british banks have awful conversion rates, if you have an option to convert money abroad do it there.