Move money from Spain to the UK

whoami1

Hello everyone,

I would really appreciate your help as dealing with Banks is one of my most hated things.

I have lived in the UK for over 9 years, have my own bank accounts etc.

my parents have asked me to open a new account with a bank that offers good interests so that they can send all their money here. The problem is that they want to be part of the account which ideally would be a family account were everyone has access. Me, mum dad and brother. they all live in spain, I live in the UK. please help because I am being hurried and I dont know what I am doing.

any suggestions are much appreciated.

thank you :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

Archi_Bald

You can normally only have 2 people on a joint account. All banks offer joint accounts but many banks ask for both account holders to apply in person in a branch. All account holders must be UK residents, too.

bowlhead99

Also putting all their money in pounds sterling in a UK bank to get a better rate of interest can be a bad decision when the interest rates are only, say, 2% a year better than Spain at the most, and it costs you 1% (best case) to translate the currency each way - the exchange costs to move it to UK and back will wipe out a year of interest receipts and that is only by assuming generous interest rates and low currency translation fees, and pretending that we don't pay tax.

The big picture is that GBP may become 10% less valuable in terms of the Euros it will buy after a year, or worse, and so it is a complete gamble to move money from a low interest economy to a high interest economy to get a better savings rate.

If that worked, we would all be going over to Ukraine where we could earn 8.5% on Russian Rubles or 11.5% on Ukraine Hryvnia in just a standard savings account. (example: http://en.unicredit.ua/pcdeposits/)

On the better accounts over there you can get 16-19% on a 6-12 month deposit. When you convert back to Euros of course, you may wish you had never tried it.