Best Foreign Currency Bank Account?

Major_Disaster

Hi there,

Given the volatility with Sterling at the moment, I’m starting to wonder whether it would be prudent to hold some money in foreign currencies (probably USD & EUR). What would be the best / cheapest way to hold foreign currnencies?

I’m looking for full FSCS protection (though am now wondering what that will mean post Brexit)

I’ve seen some HSBC Foreign Currency accounts, which don’t seem to charge any explicit fees but they do use their own (read: marked up) exchange range. I reckon I could use TransferWise to fund these account at perfect rates but am unsure whether I could do the same on the way out.

Would appreciate any help / thoughts.

Cheers!

[Deleted User]

Is this another “I read something scary in The Sun about Brexit” post?

Butch_Dingle

Fineco Bank offers GBP/USD/EUR/CHF accounts to UK residents. They offer decent x-rates very close to the mid-market rates, even better than transferwise IMHO. I don't think they offer FSCS protection but they're part of Unicredit so unlikely to go bust anytime soon.

https://finecobank.com/uk

londoninvestor

Going back to the request for an FSCS protected account: for euros, Barclays is worth looking at. You would need to open a UK current account to get their EUR account, but it's a UK onshore (and therefore FSCS-protected) account. We also established in a recent thread that you can send and receive EUR payments through SEPA with no fee, as long as you do it online. So that would meet your requirement to use Transferwise (or Revolut) etc on the way out without a further fee.

For USD, I don't know of a solution that's FSCS-protected and similarly good. As you say there's HSBC, but in that case you're paying fees to send money out of the account, not to mention SWIFT intermediary fees, which are often the curse of sending USD.

londoninvestor

Butch_Dingle wrote: »

I don't think they offer FSCS protection but they're part of Unicredit so unlikely to go bust anytime soon.

Whilst I personally think that in a showdown, Italian banks are ultimately going to be treated as too big to fail, the market certainly isn't treating Unicredit as risk-free.

slopemaster

I wouldn't recommend Fineco, based on my own experience.
They were unhelpful over a transfer that went astray; their call centre staff don't speak brilliant English, and their fee-free transfers to UK sterling accounts aren't actually fee-free as not all your money arrives.

Butch_Dingle

slopemaster wrote: »

I wouldn't recommend Fineco, based on my own experience.
They were unhelpful over a transfer that went astray; their call centre staff don't speak brilliant English, and their fee-free transfers to UK sterling accounts aren't actually fee-free as not all your money arrives.

Never had any transfers go missing/lost to and from my Fineco accounts. My former employer was based in UAE and I was always paid in USD which went straight into my Fineco USD account - they have zero fees for receiving SWIFT payments. The GBP payments take 2-3 days to arrive into your UK bank account which is pretty normal for a SWIFT payment from Italy. And yes most UK banks do charge for receiving SWIFT GBP payments except Nationwide and Starling Bank (not aware of others) so there are ways of receiving 100% of your Fineco transfers. I used to make transfers from Fineco to Starling Bank and then to my main account, First Direct.

But Fineco on their side definitely do NOT charge for SWIFT transfers to UK, though they do charge for transfers made to banks outside the EU but then again pretty much all banks do.

jonnygee2

Given the volatility with Sterling at the moment, I’m starting to wonder whether it would be prudent to hold some money in foreign currencies

Stop wondering. It's not a sensible idea. There are few good reasons for anyone to think they can beat the currency markets, and 'sterling is volatile' is definitely not one of them.

I’m looking for full FSCS protection (though am now wondering what that will mean post Brexit)

You mean when we are all fighting to death over the last potato in the country will FSCS protection apply? Probably not :-) But then you'll be too busy being chased by wild dogs to care...

Roger1

Butch_Dingle wrote: »

... there are ways of receiving 100% of your Fineco transfers.

Given that Fineco say that the Swiss franc is one of their currencies, do you know of a way to transfer Swiss francs from my Fineco account to a Swiss account receiving 100%?

But Fineco on their side definitely do NOT charge for SWIFT transfers to UK, though they do charge for transfers made to banks outside the EU but then again pretty much all banks do.

See? Fineco charged a hefty SWIFT fee to transfer CHF from my Fineco CHF account to a Swiss CHF account, and the Swiss account most definitely did not receive 100%.

Butch_Dingle

Roger1 wrote: »

Fineco charged a hefty SWIFT fee to transfer CHF from my Fineco CHF account to a Swiss CHF account, and the Swiss account most definitely did not receive 100%.

Yeah Fineco charge £19.95 for SWIFT transfers to Switzerland as they're not part of SEPA/EU. But then again so would most (if not all) non Swiss banks charge for SWIFT payments to SUI so Fineco aren't unique in doing this. I'm sure you'll agree though, Fineco's exchange rates are excellent (very close to xe.com) and if you were regularly converting large sums from GBP/USD/EUR to CHF, the savings by using their great exchange rates would easily cover the SWIFT fee to a Swiss bank. For small CHF amounts I would just use something like azimo or transferwise as they offer non SWIFT payments to Swiss accounts.