EUR business account for UK company

NFH

I'm looking for a euro-denominated business bank account for a UK limited company at a bank anywhere in the Single Euro Payments Area.

Article 3(1) of Regulation (EC) No 924/2009 on cross-border payments in the Community requires banks anywhere in the EEA to charge the same for a cross-border euro transaction as they charge for a domestic euro transaction (i.e. free in practice at banks in Eurozone countries). Therefore if a UK bank charges a lot for a domestic euro transaction, then it can charge the same for a cross-border euro transaction. Consequently I've seen ridiculous charges from UK banks of £4 to £15 for an outgoing SEPA payment and £6 for an incoming SEPA payment, all of which would be free or a few cents with banks all over the Eurozone as well as in several non-Eurozone SEPA countries such as Sweden and Switzerland. These hefty fees might be appropriate for payments requiring human intervention, but SEPA payments are entirely electronic, so these charges are not objectively justified.

Are there any UK banks that don't levy such prohibitive charges for outgoing and incoming SEPA payments on euro bank accounts? Otherwise I will have to find a bank elsewhere in the Single Euro Payments Area. Any suggestions of non-UK SEPA banks offering accounts to UK companies would be very useful.

NFH

It seems that banks in Ireland will open accounts for UK companies. For example AIB charges €4.50/quarter for account maintenance and €0.20 per transaction, which isn't too bad. Should I consider banks in any other Eurozone countries?

jonesMUFCforever

NFH wrote: »

It seems that banks in Ireland will open accounts for UK companies. For example AIB charges €4.50/quarter for account maintenance and €0.20 per transaction, which isn't too bad. Should I consider banks in any other Eurozone countries?

................But to transfer funds into the account from UK would cost how much?

NFH

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

................But to transfer funds into the account from UK would cost how much?

Why would one want to do that? If a UK business is selling goods or services to customers in the Eurozone, hence the need for a euro account, then the only transfer between EUR and GBP accounts will be from EUR to GBP. Taking the AIB example, an outgoing payment to anywhere in SEPA (which includes the UK) costs €0.20.

Obviously one should never transfer money between accounts denominated in different currencies, because then either the sending or receiving bank will use their FX rate over which the account holder has no control. One should always use an FX trading service, even something like CurrencyFair.

Boatswain

I'm in a similar position. Self-employed in the UK but almost all my clients are in the Eurozone. I've searched UK high street banks for reasonable euro accounts but the few available have either hefty maintenance charges (depending on what is in account) or ridiculous SEPA charges on each transaction. As the majority of my payments in are only 100-300 euro amounts, I'd get hammered. Still using Santander business account, at least no maintenance fee but hate to think what I'm losing with bank's Fx rate each time. How easy is it to open an Irish account from the UK and what tax implications are there if you are a UK resident and tax payer?

NFH

Does nobody really have an answer to this? I'm still finding it very hard to find a euro account with realistic charges. They all charge ridiculous fees like £15 or £25, even to send a small payment like €10, which is absurd.