Citibank Introducing Monthly Fee

BeachNut

For foreign currency accounts, they say that if your average daily balance is below the 'currency equivalent' of GBP 2,000 you will be charged the monthly fee. They do not say at what exchange rate they will calculate the GBP equivalent but they tell me it will be the month end rate. Doesn't this seem very unfair - suppose you are managing to keep the minimum balance, especially on their non-interest bearing current accounts, and on the last day of the month the exchange rate dropped below the previous 29 days average, you would be hit by the fee. They also don't tell you what exchange rate they are using (buy, sell). Customers are being forced into forecasting future exchange rates in order to avoid fees.:(

Stompa

This probably belongs with this thread:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3821589

Jew

BeachNut wrote: »

For foreign currency accounts, they say that if your average daily balance is below the 'currency equivalent' of GBP 2,000 you will be charged the monthly fee. They do not say at what exchange rate they will calculate the GBP equivalent but they tell me it will be the month end rate. Doesn't this seem very unfair - suppose you are managing to keep the minimum balance, especially on their non-interest bearing current accounts, and on the last day of the month the exchange rate dropped below the previous 29 days average, you would be hit by the fee. They also don't tell you what exchange rate they are using (buy, sell). Customers are being forced into forecasting future exchange rates in order to avoid fees.:(

Yeah, sounds really unfair.

Are you closing your account? Did they try to keep you?

premierfella

From the OP's post it sounds like this GDP equivalent will be treated in the same way as their charges - i.e. in this case they'll do the calculation based on the "Citibank reference exchange rate" at the time the charge would apply.

So what would need to be confirmed is:
- when the charging date is (presumably the 1st)
- how the Citibank reference exchange rate can be found out by the customer (presumably an issue here!)

Frankly, if there is any prospect of sailing THAT close to the £2000, getting fee-free via the Plus or Gold accounts is probably a better option (its fairly straight-forward to set up nominal direct debits and cycle through the minimum monthly credit, plus you gain the added benefits of the sterling current account such as interest free overdraft, travel insurance, etc and you don't have to keep £2000 sitting in a current account all month earning next to nothing in interest).

BeachNut

The rate is the month end rate and you can only discover what it is by calling them. For Gold, cycling through would work. For the direct debit requirements, they have to be active (ie they encourage you to remove funds from citibank!). Any idea if dds can be set-up for just 1p ?

premierfella

I've had Citigold (I downgraded to Citiplus when they removed the free benefit I actually got the Citigold account for in the first place).

I can't 100% confirm on 1p as I was using 2x£1 direct debits to avoid the Citigold charge, but I can't see 1p or £1 makes any difference as long as the two DD payments go out every month - which I think is their definition of active?

If you want a recommendation, Intelligent Finance offer the ability to pull in funds via Direct Debit to their savings accounts and can definitely be reduced to 1p (having just tested changing the amount today).

I wouldn't bother switching any "real" direct debits unless you are actually going to actively use the current account.

BeachNut

Thanks for the recommendation. Does the IF isaver allow you to set-up an recurring direct debit so you can then just forget about it ? I couldn't see this on their www.

I'll need to check with citi if the 2 dd's need to go to different accounts, or whether 2 dd's to the same account would satisfy the requirement.

Citibank is more frustrating because you need to open a GBP current account to go Gold since the USD current accounts don't allow GBP direct debits. I've aired my frustration to them and registered an official compliant about their fee scheme, but while sympathetic they don't show any indication of waiving fees. Just gotta work around the rules...

premierfella

IF operate pots - there is a seperate DD instruction for each pot. Just open 2 when you apply.

And yes, you set up the instruction at IF on each pot to take a monthly amount from Citi (1p or whatever). So once the direct debits are up and running you can forget about it (except of course ensuring that the Citi account always has funds in it for the direct debits, but that should be a given as you'll have to cycle the minimum funding requirement through it anyway).