US Dollar bank account?

bmc01

Hi All
I have received a US Dollar cheque is respect of some US shares that I held ($20k plus) and have discovered that the usual FX brokers wont take a cheque. They say pay it into a US$ bank account first......

Any suggestions on best banks to do this with (I'm currently have 1st Direct and Santader Uk £ current accounts)

Thanks in advance !

grumbler

Barclays offer $ accounts. With $20K balance it will be free, but you'll pay some fee for depositing the cheque and for $ transfer from it.

http://www.barclays.co.uk/Otheraccounts/Currencyaccounts/ForeignCurrencyAccount/P1242557963858

If they accept you it'll still be much cheaper than depositing the $ cheque to a £ account.

Wilkco123

I believe HSBC offer a Foreign Currency Account, maybe worth looking at that as a way of handling money in a different currency to the £

eDicky

If you want to keep the dollars, and/or you expect some more dollar income, it would be worth opening a USD account. In addition to those suggested, some Jersey banks provide a USD debit card with the account, eg. Santander. But charges and lousy exchange rates will still be applied by any bank to convert to GBP, although these can be avoided by using Revolut.

But if this is just a one-off thing and you want your money in pounds now, it may be better just to pay the charges to deposit the check into your normal UK account instead of going to the trouble of opening a USD account, which will begin to incur charges as soon as your balance drops below a few thousand dollars. The US dollar is strong at the moment, so you could view the extra pounds they will buy as an offset to the charges...