Offshore Bank Accounts

Billionpounddreamer

Hi there,

I was hoping somebody could help me with the following.

I've recently been looking into opening foreign currency bank accounts (offshore) so that I may be able to take advantage of exchange rate fluctuations.

Does anybody know of any bank that has a presence in South Africa that will allow a non-resident to open a bank account via telephone/internet WITHOUT incurring monthly charges. Both Barclays and HSBC have this facility but charge monthly fees for the privelege.

I assume most banks whose HQ's are outside SA would charge such fees, so save from actually travelling to SA to open an account in person, is there any other way that I can do this?

BPD

ColdIron

You could have a look at Investec

jonesMUFCforever

Why not bet on something else which does not incurr fees; but you do lose out in the end?

Caladan

For currency speculation to work you need to be willing to risk a considerable amount of money. The kind of money that would make a £5-£10/month maintenance fee to keep the account open entirely irrelevant.

If you're speculating with small sums, it's extremely unlikely you'll make any kind of profit, and probably end up with a loss.

This is just my opinion, but I'm basing it on the fact that even low margin currency brokers will still be taking a margin, so the moment you change your pounds into Rands or whatever you're instantly losing out if you try to change it back again, unless the market has moved in your favour, for small amounts it'd have to move a LOT in your favour.

Hope this post makes sense, I'm having a rare night in with a glass of whisky.

Edit: I'm not sure South Africa is the best bet either, they have some unusual anti money-laundering rules there which may prevent a non-resident from performing this kind of trade. I don't know that for a fact by the way.