Best UK bank account for receiving foreign currency?

4ze

My employer pays me in Norwegian Krone to my UK bank account.

I am unable to set up a Norwegian bank account or have my salary transferred via a third party like transferwise.

Is anyone aware which UK bank account offer the best fees for receiving and converting currency to GBP? Ideally, one offering the interbank exchange rate and a nominal fee

thanks

GaryEd

I've worked abroad for many years and during that time have used HSBC mainly because they have a global presence. Typically I ask HSBC to assist me setting up local currency accounts. Typically these accounts can be integrated into HSBC's Global Banking. You'll need a local account to meet your local costs otherwise you will get shafted with fees, poor exchange rates etc. ... which soon mount up.

I've done this in Singapore, Malaysia, China, Indonesia .. and I believe that they have branches, ATM's etc. in most major cities in Norway.

4ze

GaryEd wrote: »

I've worked abroad for many years and during that time have used HSBC mainly because they have a global presence. Typically I ask HSBC to assist me setting up local currency accounts. Typically these accounts can be integrated into HSBC's Global Banking. You'll need a local account to meet your local costs otherwise you will get shafted with fees, poor exchange rates etc. ... which soon mount up.

I've done this in Singapore, Malaysia, China, Indonesia .. and I believe that they have branches, ATM's etc. in most major cities in Norway.

thanks for your reply. Unfortunately, i am not able to open a norwegian account (it won't be worth it because then they will tax me in norway)

Is anyone aware of the UK bank offering the best set-up (deal) for such a scenario?

thanks

grumbler

4ze wrote: »

...(it won't be worth it because then they will tax me in norway)

Sure?
Taxation normally depends on the residency, not some bank account that the salary gets paid to.

Is anyone aware of the UK bank offering the best set-up (deal) for such a scenario?

All banks will charge you ~2.5-3% for conversion.

The only way to avoid this is to persuade your employer to pay your salary to some currency broker on your behalf, but normally it's some common account requiring a personal reference.

https://www.monito.com/send-money/norway/united-kingdom/nok/gbp
https://www.fxcompared.com/money-transfer/Norway-UK?amount=10000&aDir=0&bType=1&ref=filter

4ze

grumbler wrote: »

Sure?
Taxation normally depends on the residency, not some bank account that the salary gets paid to.

All banks will chard you ~2.5-3% for conversion.

The only way to avoid this is to persuade your employer to pay your salary to some currency broker on your behalf, but normally it's some common account requiring a personal reference.

https://www.monito.com/send-money/norway/united-kingdom/nok/gbp
https://www.fxcompared.com/money-transfer/Norway-UK?amount=10000&aDir=0&bType=1&ref=filter

it's unlikely that they will pay the salary to a broker (more work for them and will have to do this for everyone otherwise)

Nationwide aren't actually charging me anything directly. it is just the exchange rate isn't the best.

grumbler

Nationwide is surely not the worst. Some banks also charge a flat fee for incoming international transfers - on the top of the charges for currency conversion.

stuc100

Hi

I am in quite a similar situation and am wondering if you found a better solution that the direct salary transfer?
I have been looking into the currency accounts that are available with either Barclays and HSBC as was previously mentioned. They would hold the NOK for my own transfer to a specialist currency exchange provider ( I found HIFX have very good rates and would be saving over £100 a month using them instead of santander)
I think HSBC will be better as they are only charging 49NOK for the payments to the FX specialist and am hoping that the HIFX people are using an HSBC account as that will further reduce the charges and have inquired about this.

This is still a work in progress however as i lose over £2.5k a year on the exchange rate i am sure i can reduce this a bit

eDicky

stuc100 wrote: »

I have been looking into the currency accounts that are available with either Barclays and HSBC as was previously mentioned. They would hold the NOK for my own transfer to a specialist currency exchange provider ( I found HIFX have very good rates and would be saving over £100 a month using them instead of santander)
I think HSBC will be better as they are only charging 49NOK for the payments to the FX specialist and am hoping that the HIFX people are using an HSBC account as that will further reduce the charges and have inquired about this.

This seems like a reasonable course, especially if the broker is able to receive NOK to a UK account. Sending it to their account in Norway would perhaps incur a higher fee by HSBC.

With Revolut you can receive and hold NOK by having it sent to their IBAN at Lloyds with your personal reference, then convert to pounds at the straight interbank rate (weekdays) and withdraw to your UK account. No fees for anything except 0.5% for conversions in excess of £5k/month.

It may be worth keeping an eye on the TransferWise 'Borderless Account', it can be used to hold and convert NOK but not yet to receive it directly to personal account details, which can already be done with GBP, USD, EUR and AUD. Fineco Bank UK may also introduce more currencies in future.

Please let us know the best solution(s) you arrive at.

Anthorn

Agree with Grumbler: Tax depends on the residence for tax purposes and not any bank account that I know of. For example I own static caravans in France which earn income, I have a French bank account as well as a U.K. bank account and I pay tax in U.K. because I am a U.K. resident for tax purposes.

Fees for foreign transfers could be the fee charged by the receiving bank or one or more fees charged by the sending bank or both. There could be fees charged by the sender regardless of the destination including Revolut mentioned earlier in this thread. For example, Starling Bank does not charge for receiving foreign transfers but states that the sending bank could charge a fee:

For transfers from overseas accounts, the originator of the payment may have instructed their bank to deduct fees from the transferred amount or charge you an additional fee. We will not charge you a fee for Starling’s services.

https://www.starlingbank.com/legal/account/pricing/

eDicky

Anthorn wrote: »

Starling Bank does not charge for receiving foreign transfers but states that the sending bank could charge a fee

Unfortunately, Starling only accept inward payments in pounds, domestic or from overseas (without a fee by Starling). So they cannot be used to receive a salary payment in NOK, it would have to be exchanged to pounds first by the sender or their bank, either not possible or involving fees and adverse exchange rate.

Anthorn

eDicky wrote: »

Unfortunately, Starling only accept inward payments in pounds, domestic or from overseas (without a fee by Starling). So they cannot be used to receive a salary payment in NOK, it would have to be exchanged to pounds first by the sender or their bank, either not possible or involving fees and adverse exchange rate.

Not strictly true. in the case of Starling bank at least incoming SWIFT payments for example should be automatically converted to GBP using MasterCard rates and with no fee applied. But foreign currency has to be converted to GBP somewhere in order for it to be deposited into a GBP account.
https://community.starlingbank.com/t/swift-currency-conversion/890