is there any way to invest foreign currency in the UK?

noClue

don't wanna exchange to gbp atm, wonder if there is any broker/platform let me directly invest USD?

Daliah

You would need to look at offshore accounts.

masonic

Are you saying you have USD cash that you wish to physically take and deposit into a USD bank account?

wmb194

noClue said:

don't wanna exchange to gbp atm, wonder if there is any broker/platform let me directly invest USD?

Fineco probably. I've been using it with euros and I'd presume USD is the same as in it doesn't force you to convert your foreign currency back into sterling after every trade as most UK brokers will. Interactive Brokers is probably another option which offers accounts to people domiciled in the UK.

masonic

wmb194 said:

noClue said:

don't wanna exchange to gbp atm, wonder if there is any broker/platform let me directly invest USD?

Fineco probably. I've been using it with euros and I'd presume USD is the same as in it doesn't force you to convert your foreign currency back into sterling after every trade as most UK brokers will. Interactive Brokers is probably another option which offers accounts to people domiciled in the UK.

If that is what the OP is asking, then Interactive Investor also allows you to have multi-currency accounts. However, if investing in an S&S ISA, HMRC rules prohibit cash being held in anything other than Sterling, so it would be for a general investing account or SIPP only.

noClue

yeah, have some traveling money already in the uk currency account but not likely to use it in the near future

prolly wont involve ISA...

so Fineco and interactive investor right? will have a look and may come back with quesitons ta!

noClue

Daliah said:

You would need to look at offshore accounts.

is there any benefit of offshore accounts over those main stream banks' multi-currency accounts?

masonic

noClue said:

yeah, have some traveling money already in the uk currency account but not likely to use it in the near future

prolly wont involve ISA...

so Fineco and interactive investor right? will have a look and may come back with quesitons ta!

If you have cash in GBP that you wish to convert and store and eventually spend when travelling, then a multicurrency bank account is probably going to be better. Something like Wise. If you use an investment account, then the money would have to be converted to GBP when it is withdrawn to a bank account for spending. Worth being aware that FSCS protection may not apply (it won't in the case of Wise).

adindas

noClue said:

yeah, have some traveling money already in the uk currency account but not likely to use it in the near future

prolly wont involve ISA...

so Fineco and interactive investor right? will have a look and may come back with quesitons ta!

If it is travelling money, to physically take and deposit into a USD bank account it might not be worthy considering effort you need to do if you have not got that USD account in the UK. Also as other people have said for ISA / SIIP account you might be ending up worse as you will need to convert it GBP first

You might be better off waiting for another travel to another countries (not necessarily in the US). You will do that anyway when you do not have specialist zero fees debit card.

noClue

ah, my bad. shouldn't mentioned travel. to be precise, was travel money, but no more travel.

so decide to invest, but don't wanna exchange it to gbp unless absolutely no way to invest USD directly....

They are in main stream bank multi-currency account, no cash involved

it looks like fineco is way cheaper than ii....no monthly fee is a plus lol

masonic

So you are currently holding USD in a multicurrency account, and you want to "invest in USD directly"? Could you just leave it in USD where it is?

If it has to be an investment account for whatever reason, then you could look to open a trading account with Freetrade or similar, and buy a short-dated US treasuries ETF.