Euro Accounts

dicky73

Barclays offer a Euro account. Would it be as good to open this account, or am I missing something obvious?

Archi_Bald

Their charges document isn't loaded onto the web, which is the first bad sign. I suspect it costs regular fees, and there will probably be other charges.

Then I read:

Transfers and payments

To transfer money to and from your euro Account, call us on 08457 165921 1, or +44 191 541 2009 if you’re calling from abroad.

To make a payment from your currency account to another company or individual, please visit your local branch.

Statement frequency, certificate of interest and financial history reports
Statements for your currency account are sent on twice a year from the date you opened your account. Statements are also available on a daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis. Fees apply, as contained within our Foreign Currency Account rates and charges guide.

You can get a statement of interest by calling us. It shows interest details for an account for both a calendar and financial year, which is sometimes required for tax purposes. Financial history reports are also available on request and show more detail than a normal statement. Fees apply for both of these, as you can see in within our Foreign Currency Account rates and charges guide.

This is lightyears from what I expect from a current account.

dicky73

Yes it looks a bit grim. I'll have a go applying for the ING Belgian account.

benjus

Another option is http://www.britline.com/ (French).

Good customer service (in English) and reasonable online banking. However, it's not free (but then free banking isn't the norm in most counties in the continent). The basic account without a debit card is about €0.60 per month.

You supposedly need some kind of link with France to apply, but when I applied they were happy with something quite vague and didn't ask for any evidence.

SLZ

Archi_Bald wrote: »

All I could find on the Comdirect website was a document that said you need to provide your application via PostIdent - which means you need to physically be in Germany to apply.

May be I didn't look in the right place - have you got a link to the application form/process in english, and which explains how I apply without PostIdent?

You can send in a certified copy of a passport, that's what I did when I got my account. I hold an account with both Comdirect & DKB as DKB offer good credit cards

Porcupine

Another option is Keytrade Belgium. Everything in English, interest rates are 0.5-0.6% easy access and 1% annual deposit (withdrawal with reduced rate, the Belgian system is a bit different in that all accounts are instant access but you get an annual bonus for keeping money there for a year). If you ever need to visit them it's a quick hop over to Brussels and everybody speaks English.

It's free (in fact they pay you EUR0.05 per transaction), the only thing you don't get as a non-resident is a debit card. They also do investments (not super-cheaply, but useful if you want to keep the Euro longer term). The fund selection is a bit limited and expensive but they have shares/ETFs from all the usual exchanges.

FFB

Many thanks for useful information

szikor

Don't bother with DKB or comdirect, lately they turn everyone down who has no German credit history.