Left over euros and savings?

monkeyman777

Hi total noob here, a couple of questions, i have roughly 8000£ and was wondering what the best thing to do with it is, currently sitting in a normal flex account with nationwide i think is it best to get an isa with them or with a new bank??
Also sort of unrelated but i have 7000euros in cash from a holiday last year sitting in my room and was wondering if its best to open a euro account with a bank to put it in to or just exchange most of it into sterling. where is best to exchange?
many thanks for any help

Vortigern

If you've had a Flex Account for 3 months or more, you can get a Flexclusive ISA paying 2.5% - which is one of the best rates currently for instant access.

Then convert your Flex account to Flex Direct and you'll get 5% interest on up to £2500

Can't help with the Euros. I'd normally say keep the euros till your next holiday, but you have more left over than I would have taken in the first place.

mcfisco

You have €7000 cash left over from a holiday?

dealer_wins

mcfisco wrote: »

You have €7000 cash left over from a holiday?

Maybe it was a holiday at the Ritz for a month and when he got there he found out it was all inclusive!!

FatherAbraham

mcfisco wrote: »

You have €7000 cash left over from a holiday?

Not everyone is as poor as you, McFisco.

Warmest regards,
FA

bigadaj

FatherAbraham wrote: »

Not everyone is as poor as you, McFisco.

Warmest regards,
FA

So your average holiday is say 15k or more?

Biggles

FatherAbraham wrote: »

Not everyone is as poor as you, McFisco.

That's not the point, €7,000 left over is seriously bad budgeting!

Herbalus

Either bad budgeting or a typo. Or he won the lottery while he was there.

I will be returning from a year in Spain in June and will bring with me €1300 from returned housing deposit and last wage (maybe this chap has a similar story??), so I too am looking for the best way of converting this to GBP. Ideally I'd want a Spanish bank like N&P or Metro with no abroad fees and then I'd take it out of an ATM in England, but I don't have time for that. Unless anyone has a better solution (better than setting up a cash-only exchange stall outside Thomson with a better rate....:D) then I will search online for the best rate and pop along with the notes.

Searching on google or the main website here will give you an idea of where to go to exchange.

tiredofpoorservice

I just don't understand, given our physical proximity to the Eurozone, not to mention our (at present) membership of the EU, why our banks don't offer Euro accounts. An awful lot of people must be in the situation(s) described above and surely it would be more beneficial to banks for this money to be lodged in low interest accounts with them until next year rather than simply stuffed in a drawer somewhere or (worse) providing enormous profits to TravelEx or whoever in Arrivals Halls.

When I lived in HK the (good old) HSBC allowed me to hold all sorts of different currencies in my current account (including, ironically, the Euro).

Or am I wrong and are such accounts available here?


TOPS

Porcupine

I know of two:

Citibank offer Euro current and savings accounts, which can have debit cards (ATM card in the case of the savings account). They even pay (a pitiful amount of) interest. There's a £5pm fee if your balance is less than £2000 (I think) or you hold a Citi pay-in-£1500-per-month current account, which would be OK for the OP, but there's a cunning wheeze: if your balance is zero on the 1st of the month, you don't get charged. So if you can only put money it in it occasionally you can avoid the fee. Citi have a selection of other forex accounts too. To deposit actual cash they have a few branches in London, I don't know if there's another way to get it to them.

Barclays have a Euro Current Account, but it's like an old-fashioned 1980s account - no internet banking, no card, chequebook only, even the statements are printed in the old style. I think Lloyds have something similar.

I believe Santander via Cater Allen may do too, but I haven't kept up with that one.

As far as exchanging goes, there are a couple of interesting new kids on the block: CurrencyFair and TransferWise. As with everything in the forex market they're not FCA regulated, so take care. As for when's the best time to convert, you'll have to borrow a crystal ball for that. Whichever way, the daily fluctuations in exchange rate will dwarf any interest you'd earn, so I wouldn't convert just because you get an extra percent here or there.

Doshwaster

tiredofpoorservice wrote: »

When I lived in HK the (good old) HSBC allowed me to hold all sorts of different currencies in my current account (including, ironically, the Euro).

Or am I wrong and are such accounts available here?

HSBC do offer accounts in Euros, Dollars and other currencies: https://www.hsbc.co.uk/1/2/current-accounts/international-bank-account