USD Cash account in UK

Carltonsimpson

I have $10,000 USD in cash held in a safety deposit box.
I will want to access this cash in the future and don't want to convert to it sterling at this time (even with good exchange rate). The safety deposit box company are going to start charging me for holding cash in there, so I am looking for a free bank for account for UK residents where I can deposit this cash and keep it in there until a time I need it.
Please let me know of any suitable free USD accounts you can recommend which accept cash USD.
Thanks in advance
Carlton

steampowered

Most of the major banks can set-up a UK bank account held in dollars. HSBC, Barclays and Citibank all do it.

Carltonsimpson

Thanks- but I am finding it hard to find a bank which accpets cash deposite in US Dollars. Some of them also charge for having US Dollar accounts.
Any specific accounts you can recommend which meets my requirments?

bowlhead99

I think my dollar current account with Citi still accepts cash at the London branch, although I haven't tried to fund it with anything other than electronic transfers for years.

My dollar account there doesn't have a specific fee but only because its linked to my GBP account that does. And i think they are no longer offering the relatively cheap account i have there; new customers are directed to the citigold service which is more expensive.

I have an offshore dollar current account with Lloyds international too, but that's not free and i don't think they take cash.

Face it, the currency of this country is pounds so full-featured accounts in other currencies are a niche service and unlikely to be free.

However if your problem is that you can find an account with acceptable fees but can't physically get the USD cash into it, your solution is just to sell the currency, deposit sterling, and then transfer it electronically to your usd account.

That will cost some percentage on the exchange both ways though.