Fineco Bank multicurrencies account

Marchitiello

OceanSound said:

Marchitiello said:

OceanSound said:

SouthLondonUser said:

Am I the only one who has had good experiences with Fineco?

I have only good things to say about them and would recommend them.

If you want a EUR bank account, or need to send / receive payments in other currencies, I have found it to be a very good service. I use it mostly for the EUR account. I know a person who needs to receive payments in USD (his employer gives him sone shares and the proceeds from selling those are in USD) and he said Fineco was convenient to handle payments. Unlike Revolut, it is a real ban with deposit protection (although possibly it's the Italian and not the UK FSCS? Not sure)

Don't count on an Italian FSCS protection to recover your money. 

When I contacted the UK FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) a while ago to report fineco because they hadn't told me that I can refer my complaint to the Financial Ombudsman, it created a head scratching moment for them (the FCA). Finally, they (the FCA) accepted Fineco is covered by FCA rules. 

Even with the financial ombudsman service (FOS), there was one point of the complaint (quite late in the process when the complaint was with an ombudsman for their consideration) where the adjudicator told me:

...cases against this business are currently on hold while our service reviews a matter with them. Should it be decided our service can look into complaints raised against them and the hold be removed, the ombudsman will look to issue a decision on this complaint

To this day, I've no idea what this 'hold' was about.  I replied. Then after some three months, adjudicator reverted with the decision of the ombudsman. Not a whisper about the 'hold'.

What do you mean do not count on Italian deposit protection ( it is actually called FITD and cover deposit up to €100,000 equivalent)? That is unfunded speculation on your part. You would have to make a claim with them (FITD) if the bank went under, and has nothing to do with your reports about what FCA or FOS may have told you. They are operating (grandfathered) under the old border less rules and do have to comply with specific FCA regulations but not all as they are not a full UK bank yet (they have applied for full UK banking license). Their customer base is quite larger than N26 was and hence decided to remain in the UK market (whilst N26, operating in a similar way from their license in Germany, decided to close the Uk operation after Brexit).

Show me one where on the fineco website where it says my Bank Account is covered under FITD. Even if it was, I can't see anywhere where they say this. 

Go to a website like FirstDirect, and you click on 'legals' --> 'important notes' and there it is in bold:

Financial Services Compensation Scheme 

We're part of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS),.....

South London User above has demonstrated that to you and it was clear when they first launched the “UK multi currency account”. Fineco is a fully fledged EU bank based in Italy, originally fully owned by UniCredit, one of the largest European Banks (UniCredit only retained a minority stake after spinning off the business). As such they have to comply with the EU profit protection regulation, up to  €100,000 (the UK FSCS version was made in response to EU regulations) within the country they have a license in.

so again, you have made a baseless statement and proved wrong, no hard feeling.

Rexxx

Fineco since rang me to clarify what I meant by “timeframes” regarding the card issuance. They confirmed there will be no charges unless I ask for a GBP card as well which would incur £9.95 + £2.95 but when the EUR card expires I will be charged £2.95. I asked if I will have the card before a holiday in a few weeks he said that won’t be a problem. It seems that picking a card during the application can be beneficial? The gentleman stated the card would take a day or so to be manufactured before I will receive an email regarding the DHL delivery. Quite a bespoke service!

wmb194

We don't have to guess, we can go to the FSCS' website where, in the deposit accounts section, I entered £85,000:



https://www.fscs.org.uk/check/check-your-money-is-protected/

SouthLondonUser

I would add that I would have reservations on relying on a foreign bank (especially from a very small country) which operates here based on passporting rules, especially if from a small country.

TBH I have no idea if passporting (being licenced in one country and using that licence in another country) is still a thing after Brexit.

Before Brexit, does any one remember the Icelandic banks? UK deposits were covered under the Icelandic scheme. Iceland is tiny, there was no way the scheme could have ever compensated UK depositors, the UK Chancellor at the time decided to bail out UK depositors, and there was a legal ruling confirming that Iceland as a country did not have to compensate the UK for the deposits.

For similar reasons, if I were in the EU I would not want to open a Revolut bank account in Germany or Ireland - which relies on Revolut being a Lithuanian bank regulated by the Lithuanian authorities and on the deposits being protected by the Lithuanian scheme. To be clear, it has nothing to do with Lithuania itself and everything to do with it being a tiny country. I'd have the same reservations on, say, a bank from rich, advanced but still tiny Luxembourg.

Even before Brexit, Santander was set up as a UK bank and never relied on the Spanish deposit protection scheme.

A different question is: if I were in France, would I rely on a bank passporting its licence from, say, Germany, ie from a big country with a well-funded deposit protection scheme? I don't honestly know. I have never had to think about that.

SouthLondonUser

wmb194 said:

We don't have to guess, we can go to the FSCS' website where, in the deposit accounts section, I entered £85,000:



https://www.fscs.org.uk/check/check-your-money-is-protected/

Interesting, thanks a lot.

Doing some digging, the FCA website https://register.fca.org.uk/s/firm?id=001b000000MfQGoAAN reports that FinecoBank SpA is relying on the "temporary permission" scheme: [Fineco]

is regulated in another European Economic Area (EEA) country and can offer certain products or services in the UK. The firm must meet minimum standards agreed across all EEA countries. It’s important to check the full record for what activities this firm can do in the UK.

This firm is in the UK’s temporary permissions regime for EEA-based firms that previously passported into the UK. While in the regime, this firm can continue to undertake new business with new customers and service existing customers.

Also, https://www.fca.org.uk/consumers/dealing-eea-firms-and-funds

Temporary permissions regime (TPR): The TPR allows EEA-based firms, that told us they wanted to, to continue operating in the UK for up to 3 years after the end of the transition period. By the end of 2023 firms will need to get full authorisation in the UK or have cancelled their temporary permission.

So my understanding (it would be good if someone more knowledgeable could confirm) is:

• Deposits at Fineco are currently covered by the UK scheme (FSCS)
• We'll need to see what happens by the end of 2023, when the temporary permission regime is set to end. Maybe Fineco becomes a fully UK bank? Maybe they decide their UK business is too small, it's not worth it and they shut down their UK operations (hope not)? Who knows...

Rexxx

I hope they stick around longer than 8 months now I opened an account!

Folks - I sent x2 £0.01 payments via FP which have yet to arrive. Am I right in thinking it’s likely to be tomorrow?

there is no minimum pay in amount right? I’ve had this before with Nexo who kept a 1p of mine lol

wmb194

Rexxx said:

I hope they stick around longer than 8 months now I opened an account!

Folks - I sent x2 £0.01 payments via FP which have yet to arrive. Am I right in thinking it’s likely to be tomorrow?

there is no minimum pay in amount right? I’ve had this before with Nexo who kept a 1p of mine lol

Yes, in my experience, it should be tomorrow. Making minuscule transfers is a good way to trigger banks' fraud algorithms, though.

Rexxx

wmb194 said:

Rexxx said:

I hope they stick around longer than 8 months now I opened an account!

Folks - I sent x2 £0.01 payments via FP which have yet to arrive. Am I right in thinking it’s likely to be tomorrow?

there is no minimum pay in amount right? I’ve had this before with Nexo who kept a 1p of mine lol

Yes, in my experience, it should be tomorrow. Making minuscule transfers is a good way to trigger banks' fraud algorithms, though.

Fair enough! I could set the payee up with a few other places but won’t for now. The 1p has left the other accounts (not held up for fraud)

Band7

SouthLondonUser said:

Am I the only one who has had good experiences with Fineco?

I lived with Fineco's very slow processing times, their half-translated Italian and their unresponsive CS for many moons, for the benefit of a slightly better EUR exchange rate, which over the years saved me hundreds. I recommended Fineco to a couple of friends for this reason. I only ever used the Fineco GBP debit card for a couple of UK ATM withdrawals. When abroad, I much prefer credit cards, anyway, so I have used the Halifax Clarity for years when abroad, and I also have another EUR debit card, as well as the Chase debit card, so have no need for the Fineco EUR card.

But then, out of the blue in February this year, a regular kind of transaction that had worked fine for years didn't work, and I spent absolute ages chasing money that had gone missing between Fineco UK and Santander UK. It got eventually resolved, despite utterly terrible Fineco CS, and neither Fineco nor Santander admitting fault, so I still don't know whether either or both of them messed up but it put me totally off Fineco as I cannot risk to have to go through a similar exercise again.

In addition, there's no longer much advantage in Fineco's exchange rate, and I get my money much, much faster than with Fineco. I now use Wise and Starling for my EUR bank to bank transactions, and cards as per above for EUR spending. I will review HSBC as and if they accept EUR deposits into their Global Money account. But Fineco - no thanks, never again.

Rexxx

Is the conversion rate onto the Fineco EUR Card not better than a high st bank passing on the Mastercard/VISA rate?

The rates on conversion rates with Revolut have always been a bit better than my RBS World Mastercard