Top Interests on Foreign Currencies (e.g. Euro EUR, Dollar USD, etc.)

wmb194

ivormonee said:

Marco_L said:

I am looking to get the highest interest rate paid for keeping Euros and Dollars in a bank account for UK residents, any suggestions?

I am personally very interested in Euros.

I haven't come across, or am aware, of any Euro account of any type paying interest anywhere.

Flagstone says it can broker fixed and notice accounts paying interest with Investec.

https://www.flagstoneim.com/clients/rates/

MiserlyMartin

You can get interest on some deposit accounts in European banks. Here's one for starters

https://www.cooppank.ee/en/deposit-interests in Estonia. Euro account

You may need to open the account in person though.

adindas

ivormonee said:

Marco_L said:

I am looking to get the highest interest rate paid for keeping Euros and Dollars in a bank account for UK residents, any suggestions?

I am personally very interested in Euros.

I haven't come across, or am aware, of any Euro account of any type paying interest anywhere.

Revolut do pay interest and you get a near perfect exchange rate when converting from £ to EUR. But the interest rate is very low compared to saving account.

Also as I have mentioned in my previous post the inherent problem when using them as a main Euro account.

cwep2

Marco_L said:

I am looking to get the highest interest rate paid for keeping Euros and Dollars in a bank account for UK residents, any suggestions?

I am not coming to the table empty handed, I can share that Revolut currently pays 0.95% on USD for premium users (and no interests for EUR)

If possible, I would like this post to become a repository of updates on interest paying accounts for Foreign Currencies.

I am personally very interested in Euros and Dollars accounts, any further suggestions please?

Hi Marco,

Firstly Eur rates are hard to find above 0%, in fact a couple of months ago the ECB benchmark rate was negative and some banks charged people to hold balances (effectively negative interest rates). So whilst they moved back to zero and more rises are expected in the next few meetings, the market has had almost no savings products with positive interest rates, so very much emerging and may see new things around.

Usd has had positive rates for a while. You mention Revolut, if you pay for a metal plan you can get 1.15% interest which is better than nothing and although people talk about Revolut not having the FSCS 85k protection, the Usd 'vault' I have with them says it is with Investec UK and has the full 85k protection. This is not a bad start and may be worth paying for higher tier to get better interest rate depending on your balance. Note that Revolut seems to impose an £85k limit on deposits although based on FX at the time.

There are other options, but most are time deposits (=fixed rate bonds) usually available in 3m 6m 1yr (or longer periods) and sometimes you can get shorter, like 1m and 2m as well. I know that Citibank UK offer these (and have full FSCS protection) but there is a minimum of approx $20k for these. I am currently a customer and use these. I read in the press they are closing their UK retail offering, but I haven't been told that as a customer (yet) but may affect the ability to open new accounts.

I know that a few other places also offer Usd time deposits, HSBC, ICICI Bank, Natwest, but as I'm not a customer I don't have any idea what the rates are like. Barclays, Lloyds, Investec and I'm sure many others also have Usd current accounts available (and as full UK banks offer FSCS protection) and may also offer time deposits or savings accounts but they don't seem to make it obvious from their public websites. It's worth noting that time deposits are usually from market rates (- a spread/profit for the bank) so the rates vary from day to day. I will post today's Usd rates for Citibank below.

This is the sort of 'high net worth' client product that is common at a private bank or the private banking arm of the retail banks which often come with 1. Minimum balance/income requirements 2. Fees in the £hundreds or more per year, £10/month is 'cheap' in this area. There are many other private banks out there which will for sure offer this sort of product, but if you just want to get a bit of interest on Usd savings, unless you have 7figs you are probably not of interest to them or worth it for you to pay the fees to get access.

Citi USD time deposit rates (17 Oct):
1m 2.16% 2m 2.43% 3m 2.44% 6m 2.00% 1y 2.04%
Note that I think the 1-3m are OK (competitive ish) but the 6m and 1yr are way below market prices so they have seemed to cut their 6m+ rates maybe because they want to exit the retail market soon. For comparison they offer 3m and 1yr Gbp time deposit at 1.81% and 1.44% respectively which is pretty rubbish!