Fineco Bank multicurrencies account

Psyduck1980

I applied for an account yesterday and received my account details straight away. However, I haven't received my log in credentials for online banking. Does this usually take a few days?

Also, I have requested a debit card in Euros in order to withdraw cash and/or make payments in the Euro Zone FOC. Do I need to "convert" my GBP balance to EUR before travelling or does Fineco just draw the funds from the GBP part of my account?

Thanks in advance.

Foibles

I think my login arrived pretty promptly, but a day or two wait was standard for others.

I use my Euro card in the same fashion. You need to convert beforehand, so it takes a bit of foreplanning. You also can't convert over the weekend which caught me out once and I had to go back to the back up of my overseas credit card.

michaels

ian_h wrote: »

Can anyone confirm whether these accounts appear on a UK credit Report please?

Got a generic id check not credit search on my Experian and nothing else.

colsten

This is my experience of applying for, and using the FINECO current account. My interest was initially in the multi-currency current account (GBP, EUR, USD, CHF), and in their current sign-up offer. I have not looked at their trading platform and don't intend to do so. The purpose of this post is to - hopefully - make it easier for others to decide whether this account is for them. If anyone would like to add, or contest, anything, I am happy to make appropriate changes to my following post so we have everything in one post.

Summary

1. My bottom line assessment is now that the Fineco current account has multiple drawbacks (e.g. no FSCS protection, very slow payments in and out, inability to change card PIN, essentially useless app, no SOs or DDs, potential charges for receiving money from Fineco), and is also unlikely to be the best multi-currency account - certainly not if you are after GBP and EUR.
   
   
2. It is still worth going after their sign-up bonus, and Fineco may be of interest to investors and traders. I have not investigated investment and trading functionality though understand that experienced and die-hard traders quite like it.

General observations

• Fineco is an Italian Bank and Trading Platform,[STRIKE] part of the UniCredit group [/STRIKE]* which has 26m customers, predominantly throughout Europe. *as of May 9 2019, Fineco is no longer part of UniCredit - see here for details
• Fineco is mainly about trading. A multi-currency current account is tacked on to it
• Fineco are subject to limited FCA regulation but do not offer FSCS protection There is the equivalent Italian protection, up to €100K
• the English versions of their website and of their app are well translated, though the occasional Italian word does still pop up. CS appears to be staffed by Italians who speak good English
• the current account is free to hold, and free to use for simple current account transactions.
• I have not tried DDs or SOs but understand they are not offered
• Fineco are not part of CASS
• Optional debit cards are offered in both, GBP and EUR but watch out for provisioning charges which you might incur several months after you received a debit card
• there is no cheque book, and there are no UK Branches.
• there is no facility for cash deposits
• they claim there are no currency conversion fees for paying or withdrawing in Euro. I have not investigated their exchange rate but take it from feedback others have provided that they are "near-perfect"
• there is no interest for positive balances. No reward offerings for DDs, either
• I couldn’t see anything about overdrafts but didn’t look for it, either

Application (UK residents only)

• it’s entirely online. You get almost nothing in the Post but you are showered with countless PDFs, detailing T&Cs and your application details
• you must have a landline (why, I haven’t figured out yet)
• you must have a mobile (for various passcodes needed during and after application)
• you must enter your UK NI Number or your UK tax code
• you must upload a photo ID. If not born in the UK, it must be a passport. Otherwise a UK Driving Licence will do but your address on the DL must match the one you apply with
• if you are not planning to make any purchases by debit card, you can decline the offer of the optional debit card(s). There will be charges for the provision of debit cards, so please check before you order. The minimum charge will be a £2.95 delivery charge for the first card you order.
• your details will be checked online. I have yet to see any Fineco search on my credit files. Other users report that they do not carry out a full credit check
• you need to set up an 8-digit PIN number for logging in, and a separate 8-digit Client Service pass number. You also need to set up several bits of memorable data
• you will normally get an immediate Go/No-Go decision.
• after successful application, it will take 1-2 working days before they will email and text you login information

Using the account

• there’s no 2-factor login but besides your userid and your password, you need your PIN every time you log into Online banking, and at least the first time you log into the App (subsequent App logins can be with fingerprint or FaceID)
• I find the user interface for Online Banking very cluttered and not intuitive
• the App seems to be 99.9% dedicated to trading, and is essentially useless for banking. After I could use it initially, it now tells me to “visit finecobank.com first”. Doing so makes no difference.
• you get a UK sort code and a 12-digit account number. To pay money into the account from a UK account, use the sort code and the last 8 digits of your Fineco account number
• Fineco do not support Faster Payments.
  1. Incoming payments: They operate on the basis of “by-the-end-of-the-next-working-day” for deposits. The value date appears to be the date the FP was sent. NB: a second payment I made at 8am on a Monday was credited on the same day.
     
  2. Outgoing payments: These are unbelievably slow, making the account really, really unattractive. As an example, a small payment made at 12:00 on Thursday 18th April (day before Good Friday) took until Thursday 25th April to arrive. I was told that the delay was due to "the Easter feast", and that " In general, the outgoing bank transfers, inserted before the cut offs (2 PM), are executed one working day after"
     
     I used Santander as the receiving bank and was not charged any fee for the receipt of the money. It was, however, a small amount which was processed as an "electronic fund transfer" and I got a special letter in the post from Santander, advising me of a credit to my Santander 123 account. This is banking from the dark ages!
     
     If you have decided to get a debit card, you can bypass the excruciatingly long withdrawal transfer times, as well as any charges the receiving UK bank may levy(*), by simply withdrawing cash at an ATM. Then use the cash or deposit it into a UK account of yours. The Fineco card has a nice daily/monthly limit up to £5,000.
     
     * You may or may not make the same experience: Santander, and I believe Nationwide and Tesco Bank, were not charging for receiving money [in GBP] from Fineco. Other UK banks may do - Barclays and First Direct apparently have charged as much as £6 for a single transaction.
     
     
• when paying someone else by bank transfer, or with the debit card, be very careful. Their bank might charge for receiving money from Fineco.
• you must either have a Fineco debit card or a security code if you want to make any payments from your Fineco current account. These arrive by DHL (card) or Post (security code), some 3-5 working days after you requested them.
• the debit card appears to have a monthly limit. In my case, it is set to £4,000.
• you will not be able to change the PIN of your debit card yourself - you have to use the one they assign to you. There are plenty of other things you can do to the card, though: e.g. disable it for gambling, disable use outside Europe, disable for Internet purchases.

Bonus features
I understand that, from time to time, Fineco are running refer-a-friend offerings in which existing account holders can participate.

bristolleedsfan

Has anyone moved 1000.00 back to UK Bank Account without paying 2.95 for debit card, read somewhere about codes through post that dont arrive ???

agrinnall

While I wouldn't use them myself I'm not sure the slow FP is that much of an issue. Yes, we have got used to it being almost instant, but there are plenty of UK FIs who also take a good chunk of the allowed time. As in your example, I sent a payment from Nationwide to one of my NS&I accounts for the first time the day before Good Friday, and it has still not been credited. That's unlikely to be due to Nationwide, who are normally close to instant, so I imagine that NS&I have some processes that drastically slow things down.

stphnstevey

The FX rate is the best feature of Fineco. I can put up with any small inconsistencies for this

Their trading platform is actually really good. Trading costs are similar to all but the cheapest (Degiro or IB beat them for US shares). But their FX rates make up for this and mean they are comparably cheap for purchasing foreign shares (US for example)

However Fineco does not have the FSCS, just the lower Euro coverage

Degiro generally has cheaper dealing charges, but a higher FX rate. Again not FSCS.

IB has cheaper US share dealing charges but similar UK share dealing charges, similar FX, but an inactivity fee for less than $100k or equivalent

Voyager2002

colsten wrote: »

This is my experience of applying for, and using the FINECO current account. My interest was initially in the multi-currency current account (GBP, EUR, USD, CHF), and in their current sign-up offer. I have not looked at their trading platform and don't intend to do so. The purpose of this post is to - hopefully - make it easier for others to decide whether this account is for them.

Summary

My bottom line assessment is now that the Fineco bank account has multiple drawbacks (e.g. no FSCS protection, very slow Faster Payments in and out, inability to change card PIN, essentially useless app) is unlikely to be the best multi-currency account - certainly not if you are after GBP and EUR. It is still worth going after their sign-up bonus, and Fineco may be of interest to investors and traders (I have not investigated the latter).

If anyone would like to add, or contest, anything, I am happy to make appropriate changes to my following post so we have everything in one post.

General observations

• Fineco is an Italian Bank and Trading Platform, part of the UniCredit group which has 26m customers, predominantly throughout Europe
• Fineco is mainly about trading. A multi-currency current account is tacked on to it
• Fineco are subject to limited FCA regulation but do not offer FSCS protection There is the equivalent Italian protection, up to €100K
• the English versions of their website and of their app are well translated, though the occasional Italian word does still pop up. CS appears to be staffed by Italians who speak good English
• the current account is free to hold, and free to use for simple current account transactions.
• I have not tried DDs or SOs
• Fineco are not part of CASS
• Optional debit cards are offered in both, GBP and EUR but watch out for provisioning charges
• there is no cheque book, and there are no UK Branches.
• there is no facility for cash deposits
• they claim there are no currency conversion fees for paying or withdrawing in Euro. I have not investigated their exchange rate yet
• there is no interest for positive balances. No reward offerings for DDs, either
• I couldn’t see anything about overdrafts but didn’t look for it, either

Application (UK residents only)

• it’s entirely online. You get almost nothing in the Post but you are showered with countless PDFs, detailing T&Cs and your application details
• you must have a landline (why, I haven’t figured out yet)
• you must have a mobile (for various passcodes needed during and after application)
• you must enter your UK NI Number or your UK tax code
• you must upload a photo ID. If not born in the UK, it must be a passport. Otherwise a UK Driving Licence will do but your address on the DL must match the one you apply with
• if you are not planning to make any purchases by debit card, you can decline the offer of the optional debit card(s). There will be charges for the provision of debit cards, so please check before you order. The minimum charge will be a £2.95 delivery charge for the first card you order.
• your details will be checked online. I have yet to see any Fineco search on my credit files. Other users report that they do not carry out a full credit check
• you need to set up an 8-digit PIN number for logging in, and a separate 8-digit Client Service pass number. You also need to set up several bits of memorable data
• you will normally get an immediate Go/No-Go decision.
• after successful application, it will take 1-2 working days before they will email and text you login information

Using the account

• there’s no 2-factor login but besides your userid and your password, you need your PIN every time you log into Online banking, and at least the first time you log into the App (subsequent App logins can be with fingerprint or FaceID)
• I find the user interface for Online Banking very cluttered and not intuitive
• the App seems to be 99.9% dedicated to trading, and is essentially useless for banking. After I could use it initially, it now tells me to “visit finecobank.com first”. Doing so makes no difference.
• you get a UK sort code and a 12-digit account number. To pay money into the account from a UK account, use the sort code and the last 8 digits of your Fineco account number
• Fineco support Faster Payments but it’s the “by-the-end-of-the-next-working-day” version of FP for deposits. The value date appears to be the date the FP was sent
• FP for payments. This is incredibly slow. As an example, a payment made on the day before Good Friday has still not arrived on the Tuesday after Easter.
• you must either have a Fineco debit card or a security code if you want to make any payments from your Fineco current account. These arrive by DHL (card) or Post (security code), some 3-5 working days after you requested them.
• the debit card appears to have a monthly limit. In my case, it is set to £4,000.
• you will not be able to change the PIN of your debit card yourself - you have to use the one they assign to you. There are plenty of other things you can do to the card, though: e.g. disable it for gambling, disable use outside Europe, disable for Internet purchases.

Bonus features
I understand that, from time to time, Fineco are running refer-a-friend offerings in which existing account holders can participate.

Please could you edit this useful post to show the following:

1. In the summary, you should mention the Italian equivalent of FSCS protection (limited to Euro 100,000): the risk of losing your entire deposit is remote.

2. One of the best features is that you can switch between currencies at near-perfect exchange rates, something that I and other posters have checked out.


3. It is easy to avoid paying anything for a debit card: there was no delivery charge for my GBP card and if you decline to pay for a second card they usually make some kind of 'special offer'.

4. You should ensure that you have the code needed to operate your account: order one well before you are likely to use it. And remember that there are no Faster Payments for withdrawing money.

5. I have not tried the App, but find online banking easy to use.

Voyager2002

stphnstevey wrote: »

Anyone using this for trading?
It appears you can buy ETFs listed on US stock exchanges, which you can't do with most UK brokers. Not tested a purchase yet though
Anyone use the free downloadable trading software?

My experience buying US-listed ETFs with Fineco is the same as with II. Lots of ETFs are listed, but at a certain stage of the purchase process they are obliged to show you the KIID. If the provider does not supply a KIID then you cannot complete the purchase.

Fineco do offer a workd-around for this if you are a 'sophisticated' investor, but you need to provide documentary evidence for this that I cannot supply so do not know whether this would work for others. You cannot just self-certify.

stphnstevey

Voyager2002 wrote: »

My experience buying US-listed ETFs with Fineco is the same as with II. Lots of ETFs are listed, but at a certain stage of the purchase process they are obliged to show you the KIID. If the provider does not supply a KIID then you cannot complete the purchase.

Fineco do offer a workd-around for this if you are a 'sophisticated' investor, but you need to provide documentary evidence for this that I cannot supply so do not know whether this would work for others. You cannot just self-certify.

Yes, apparently Interactive Brokers allows Swiss residents to still buy US domiciled ETFs but not Euro residents (not very useful unless your Swiss, but it made me think they were still available to UK residents via IB for a period till I realised it was only Swiss forums that confirmed still possible)

Wonder if Brexit will change this. IB subsidiary is UK based, but they confirmed they would likely move to operations to Luxembourg if Brexit (which may change the availability of FSCS)

IB (not II) is much cheaper than Fineco for US shares, the FX rates are similar and there is the full FSCS as IB has a authorised UK subsidiary, although there is an inactivity fee for less than $100k

I looked at Degiro, but their custody account dividend charge worked out similar to IBs inactivity charge, I didn't want counter party risk with them lending my shares otherwise and they didn't have FSCS (only the 20,000 euros equivalent for investments)