US Dollar account in UK

lr1277

Given the possibility that Wise may not accept transfers in from BVI, I was going to suggest Citi Bank UK. They market themselves as suitable for the global customer. That is they have multi-currency accounts.
However they may be aiming for the HNWI market, which may or may not apply to you.
However for fee free banking you need to keep the equivalent of £150k across all their accounts. Otherwise they charge £75 per month. But I would imagine they have no problems accepting money coming in from BVI.
And given that they have an office in London. I would hope they have FSCS protection.
This is not a recommendation as I have never used Citi Bank but found them years ago when thinking I needed a dollar account.

Daliah

BVI_EXPAT said:

Lots of ideas and options rolling in here, very much appreciated, thank you. Anybody got any experience or thoughts on the Revolut card ?

Revolut is not a bank in the UK. They have applied for a licence many months ago but still have not got it. Their CS has a bad reputation, though some hardcore fans (employees?) of Revolut deny this.

Daliah

lr1277 said:

And given that they have an office in London. I would hope they have FSCS protection.

Office in London is not an indicator of FSCS protection but some Citibank firms figure on the FSCS register.

Marchitiello

As  others have said you have option but currency account with the mainstream banks may end up costing you a fair chunk as there are fees left right and centre and they apply terrible exchange rates when you want to convert back to GBP.

wise is good and pretty fast once your profile is fully verified but they do charge fee, albeit minimal, and thus is only my second choice. I never keep balances on my wise accounts. 

Fineco UK was launched around 5 years ago, and it comes with a UK sort code and account number format for the GBP account, but the bank is effectively run from Italy. They result in the best net exchanged amount but as other have said it is extremely slow. When I am not in a hurry , it is my number one choice.

Chase UK have had discussion on their internal forum and there was at least a couple of question in past survey asking about multi currency account, so I also think there is some probability that at some point they will have such an option but I would not bet on it and thus not consider it at all at the moment.

with regards to Citibank, they have a full UK operation, banking license and thus FSCS protection (https://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/deposit-protection.do) and until few years ago they even had branches in the UK, after a fairly big push to find middle class customers in the early 2000 (I remember being still a student and they were asking for a minimum income of £25k in 2002-3 I believe). One of their nice feature was the multi currency account. However they have exited the retail banking (closing all existing accounts, some stories here https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5394211/citibank-account-closure albeit someone mistakenly alleged that they were not longer part of FSCS) and only now target HNWI operating from the Head Office in Canary Wharf and through Online. The minimum requirement to be e legible for an account with them is a min balance of £150k. https://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/current-accounts.do?icid=UKWTM6CUKLOCATL20

[Deleted User]

A family member had Citibank UK products and qualified for their gold service.

The gold current account definitely moved from London to Dublin. It moved from the FSCS to the Irish FSCS equivalent whilst still keeping the same banking details.

Exodi

Marchitiello said:

As  others have said you have option but currency account with the mainstream banks may end up costing you a fair chunk as there are fees left right and centre and they apply terrible exchange rates when you want to convert back to GBP.

wise is good and pretty fast once your profile is fully verified but they do charge fee, albeit minimal, and thus is only my second choice. I never keep balances on my wise accounts. 

Fineco UK was launched around 5 years ago, and it comes with a UK sort code and account number format for the GBP account, but the bank is effectively run from Italy. They result in the best net exchanged amount but as other have said it is extremely slow. When I am not in a hurry , it is my number one choice.

Chase UK have had discussion on their internal forum and there was at least a couple of question in past survey asking about multi currency account, so I also think there is some probability that at some point they will have such an option but I would not bet on it and thus not consider it at all at the moment.

with regards to Citibank, they have a full UK operation, banking license and thus FSCS protection (https://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/deposit-protection.do) and until few years ago they even had branches in the UK, after a fairly big push to find middle class customers in the early 2000 (I remember being still a student and they were asking for a minimum income of £25k in 2002-3 I believe). One of their nice feature was the multi currency account. However they have exited the retail banking (closing all existing accounts, some stories here https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5394211/citibank-account-closure albeit someone mistakenly alleged that they were not longer part of FSCS) and only now target HNWI operating from the Head Office in Canary Wharf and through Online. The minimum requirement to be e legible for an account with them is a min balance of £150k. https://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/current-accounts.do?icid=UKWTM6CUKLOCATL20

If the above costs are correct, for Citibank to be cheaper than Wise, the OP would need to be transferring more than £18.5k per month. That would be some pension, I can't imagine it's relevant to the OP.

I've seen this implication a few times now - are you suggesting there are no costs associated with Fineco? They charge no fee or account charge at all? Not many businesses offer services for completely free.

Again, I still think people are getting overly obsessed with the FSCS angle, when the OP could easily just convert the money and put it into an FSCS backed UK bank account instead of just pooling the money in a foreign currency account.

With regards to Wise possibly not accepting transfers from BVI - if OP is in BVI, why doesn't he just open an account, deposit a token amount and find out?

Daliah

Exodi said:

I've seen this implication a few times now - are you suggesting there are no costs associated with Fineco? They charge no fee or account charge at all? Not many businesses offer services for completely free.

There is no charge for the Fineco multi currency account. All transactions are free. You cannot presently get a better currency exchange deal anywhere. The only snag is that they are very slow, as I have outlined earlier. This snag may or may not matter to the OP. 

Exodi said:

Again, I still think people are getting overly obsessed with the FSCS angle, when the OP could easily just convert the money and put it into an FSCS backed UK bank account instead of just pooling the money in a foreign currency account.

Nobody is obsessed with FSCS. It is just responsible to point out if this protection is not available. The OP has all the relevant info and can decide whether it matters to them.

wmb194

Exodi said:

Marchitiello said:

As  others have said you have option but currency account with the mainstream banks may end up costing you a fair chunk as there are fees left right and centre and they apply terrible exchange rates when you want to convert back to GBP.

wise is good and pretty fast once your profile is fully verified but they do charge fee, albeit minimal, and thus is only my second choice. I never keep balances on my wise accounts. 

Fineco UK was launched around 5 years ago, and it comes with a UK sort code and account number format for the GBP account, but the bank is effectively run from Italy. They result in the best net exchanged amount but as other have said it is extremely slow. When I am not in a hurry , it is my number one choice.

Chase UK have had discussion on their internal forum and there was at least a couple of question in past survey asking about multi currency account, so I also think there is some probability that at some point they will have such an option but I would not bet on it and thus not consider it at all at the moment.

with regards to Citibank, they have a full UK operation, banking license and thus FSCS protection (https://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/deposit-protection.do) and until few years ago they even had branches in the UK, after a fairly big push to find middle class customers in the early 2000 (I remember being still a student and they were asking for a minimum income of £25k in 2002-3 I believe). One of their nice feature was the multi currency account. However they have exited the retail banking (closing all existing accounts, some stories here https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5394211/citibank-account-closure albeit someone mistakenly alleged that they were not longer part of FSCS) and only now target HNWI operating from the Head Office in Canary Wharf and through Online. The minimum requirement to be e legible for an account with them is a min balance of £150k. https://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/current-accounts.do?icid=UKWTM6CUKLOCATL20

I've seen this implication a few times now - are you suggesting there are no costs associated with Fineco? They charge no fee or account charge at all? Not many businesses offer services for completely free.

Nope, not for general banking, and there are plenty of British banks offering fee-free current accounts so why the surprise at an Italian one? 

The one 'gotcha' you just need to be careful of is that when you transfer money via Sepa to a British bank/BS it doesn't charge to *receive* Sepa deposits. Nationwide is one that I know of.

https://finecobank.co.uk/public/pricing/

Exodi

Daliah said:

There is no charge for the Fineco multi currency account. All transactions are free. You cannot presently get a better currency exchange deal anywhere. The only snag is that they are very slow, as I have outlined earlier. This snag may or may not matter to the OP. 

wmb194 said:

Nope, not for general banking, and there are plenty of British banks offering fee-free current accounts so why the surprise at an Italian one? 

If they are offering the an exchange rate that isn't pre-loaded with no transaction or account fees, I can see why they'd be busy.

I may try my next transaction with them and compare the pound notes at the end, otherwise the cynic in me would always think 'what's in it for them?'

eDicky

With regards to Wise possibly not accepting transfers from BVI - if OP is in BVI, why doesn't he just open an account, deposit a token amount and find out?

Wise don't accept cash deposits if that's what you mean. Being in BVI is not necessary in order to send funds electronically from there. But Wise don't accept dollars from BVI so there's nothing to 'find out', Wise will return any such transfer sent.