EUR Denominated Fund Account in UK - possible?

JennyH1980

Hey there,

I have some EURO sitting around in my Paypal account.
I don't want to convert it to GBP as the exchange rate is pretty bad.
So I was thinking of investing it instead.

I know absolutely *nothing* about investing, but read a little about funds on the articles here.

I'd like to know, is it possible to open any funds accounts here in the UK denominated in EUROs and I can just move my EUR across?

Or can I open a fund account in a EUR country and do the same?

Any advice on how I can go about doing the above would be absolutely brilliant.
Also any advice in general about investing the EUR would be great!


Thanks!!!!

RetiredInThailand

You can certainly find Euro denominated funds in the UK though you may have to hunt around a bit to find the best dealer to buy them through. My UK broker certainly allows me to credit my account with currency and then buy funds and stocks denominated in that currency without any exchange fees, but I had to set it up in advance.

You can also find a dealer in Euroland and buy there, of course.

sabretoothtigger

Which broker is that? Mine skims 1% off a foreign purchase and the same when selling

I think the best market would be Germany, I dont think any of them are as 'easy' as London

Selftrade is uk based but backed by Socgen.

RetiredInThailand

sabretoothtigger wrote: »

Which broker is that? Mine skims 1% off a foreign purchase and the same when selling.

NatWest Stockbrokers. You have to set up the multicurrency option first (free) and once done it allows you to credit your account in currency so there is no exchange spread.

JennyH1980

As I don't know much about funds or investing.

I was hoping to find something which I could just buy a fund from (like a funds supermarket) with low fees and just let them manage it.

I called HL, but they don't have EUR denominated accounts.

Do you know of any German funds supermarkets I could use?

Thanks for all your help

sabretoothtigger

Not unless you speak German and give them a ring

Ask socgen and HSBC

Pachira

And there's plenty of euro denominated ETFs you could purchase, eg:
http://uk.ishares.com/publish/repository/documents/en/downloads/product_list_uk.pdf

grey_gym_sock

JennyH1980 wrote: »

I have some EURO sitting around in my Paypal account.
I don't want to convert it to GBP as the exchange rate is pretty bad.

do you mean that you are confident that EUR will rise relative to GBP, so you will do better converting your EUR into GBP later?

or that paypal charge too much for currency conversion, so you wouldn't get as many GBP as your EUR are actually worth?

or something else?

predicting future changes in exchange rates is hard.

could you get paypal to pay the EUR out (into an account accepting EUR) without converting it, and then get somebody else to convert to GBP more cheaply? i don't know, but it's more likely for a larger sum of money, because you can get better exchange rates for larger sums.

So I was thinking of investing it instead.

there's a logical jump here. investing in stockmarket-related funds in the euro area is very different from deciding when or how to convert EUR to GBP. i'm not saying it's a bad idea. but it is much more similar to any investment in stock markets than to having EUR on deposit. the value of your investment can fluctuate wildly but hopefully will be higher in the long run ... unlike cash on deposit (in any stable currency), which is relatively stable but in the longer run at risk from inflation.

sorry, a shorter answer: investing it might be a good idea, but not because it's sitting in EUR in a paypal account.

I'd like to know, is it possible to open any funds accounts here in the UK denominated in EUROs and I can just move my EUR across?

it doesn't really matter how a fund is denominated, just what assets it invests in. if you're spending in GBP, what matters to you is how many GBP you will get when you sell your units. so it's the value of the fund's assets in GBP that matters to you. it comes to the same thing whether you sell your units for GBP, or sell them for EUR and then convert to GBP.

if you're going to spend your money in GBP, you're going to have to convert it at some time anyway.

for cheap funds investing europe (ex-UK), i'd look at HSBC European Index, or Vanguard FTSE Developed Europe ex UK Equity Index.

sabretoothtigger

Euro to Sterling right now is coincidentally about half way between its highest ever price & the 2007 low price occurring before it really accelerated

Looks a reasonable chance of a low point for Euro or conversely a top for Sterling

Mostly the difference is down to how each currency relates to the dollar, not between themselves so much

Euro is the lowest since the 2010 summer low

http://i.imgur.com/JCOka.png

A cheap fund would follow the Dax or be biased to Germany and the Swiss companies since they are the great exporters anyway.

Xstrata and Glencore are both swiss, buy some Shell shares on their Dutch listing, they are all FTSE companies, so its hardly adventurous

JennyH1980

Thanks everyone for your help.

I mainly want to do it because Paypal won't let me take EUR out of my account unless I convert it to GBP with them first.
And they have a horrible exchange rate, so I wanted to just move it out of this account into an investment account rather than it sitting around twiddling it's thumbs in my Paypal account.

I'll deffo take a look at all your suggestions and thanks! :j

rockitup

TD Direct Investing do the same deal as Natwest Stockbrokers, fund in Euros, Dollars etc and then no FX conversion charges.

Not looked at NatWest Stockbrokers yet but it may be using the TD platform.