Currency accounts

pecunianonolet

Hi there,

Which banks offer currency accounts where I can pay in fee free (cash and other transactons)?

I have a € currency account with HSBC and can pay in Euro fee free but for all other currencies they charge a fee. They have a free Global Money account, which is in theory really great and covers a wide range of currencies but you can't pay into the Global money accounts, except from your own HSBC accounts using HSBC exchange rate.

So for Euro I can pay in cash in branch or receive a transaction from any Euro account in the EEA for free into my currency account, move it to Euro Global Money and can use the Global Money card to spend it on holiday or transfer to another Euro account.

However, I have HK$, RMB, US$ (previous holidays and business trips) and would like to have that somewhere on an account. Yes, I could just take it and have it exchanged but the rates are redicilous.

I am also expecting future regular USD payments into my paypal account and would like to transfer from paypal into a USD bank account.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Band7

You'll always have difficulties with foreign currency cash deposits. In the few instances you can, e.g. Euros at HSBC or Barclays, you pay for the service in some way or other. May be not at the point of deposit but, for example, with dreadful exchange rates or the need to keep large cash balances in accounts that pay little or no interest.

If you are stuck with foreign cash at the end of a holiday or business trip, your best bet is a Currency Exchange, and yes, you'll get a rotten exchange rate because they will want to recover their costs and make a profit. You can lessen or avoid your likely loss by minimising the amount of cash you are taking to start with.

I am not using Paypal so don't know whether they would work with with the Fineco Multicurrency account, or with Wise, both of which can receive and hold a variety of foreign currencies. Note that Wise has no FSCS cover, Fineco does. Neither of them accept cash deposits though.

 

pecunianonolet

Thanks for the advice, Euros are not a problem for me as I can get them into a Euro bank account I have in the EU and get interest there. I would like to hold other currencies I have left over or I am expecting to receive and I am aware that I don't get interest which I am very happy to neglect in this case. I was not bothering with the cash as I was hoping that I will be back in those countries (China, HK) on a regular basis for business but the pandemic changed that. I have a Wise account but rarely use it so will look into that and never heard of Fineco so will check them out too.