Best bank account for Euro salary

helencn

My daughter has a new job working as an entertainer in a hotel in Turkey. She is going to be employed by TUI Magic Life which is based in Germany so will be paid in Euros. Her contract is for one season so will be in Turkey from April to November 2023.
Can anyone offer some advise regarding the best bank account for her to open. She wants to minimise fees and charges but also be able to access her money while she is abroad.
Any help would be much appreciated!

Band7

She could try Starling Bank which is free of charge and very easy to manage. It should also allow her to exchange to Turkish Lira at a reasonable rate, and the Mastercard debit card can be used at Turkish ATMs.

https://www.starlingbank.com/current-account/euro-bank-account/

She should also have a backup travel card as relying on just a single source of money is very risky - https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/credit-cards/travel-credit-cards/

Band7

If she wants to save some of her money, Starling won't be the best place. She'd have to convert to GBP (which is very easy to do in Starling), and can then use one of the top savings accounts, such as Tandem or CHIP. Both of these work very well with the Starling GBP account.

gt94sss2

helencn said:

My daughter has a new job working as an entertainer in a hotel in Turkey. She is going to be employed by TUI Magic Life which is based in Germany so will be paid in Euros. Her contract is for one season so will be in Turkey from April to November 2023.
Can anyone offer some advise regarding the best bank account for her to open. She wants to minimise fees and charges but also be able to access her money while she is abroad.
Any help would be much appreciated!

Consider using a free HSBC Currency Account to receive her salary with an associated/free Global Money Account/debit card for spending.

Revolut and Monese are other possible options

It would probably be a good idea for her to also have at least one f/x free credit card as well just in case one is useful (perhaps a Barclaycard Rewards and/or Halifax Clarity/Jaja one)

Band7

gt94sss2 said:

helencn said:

My daughter has a new job working as an entertainer in a hotel in Turkey. She is going to be employed by TUI Magic Life which is based in Germany so will be paid in Euros. Her contract is for one season so will be in Turkey from April to November 2023.
Can anyone offer some advise regarding the best bank account for her to open. She wants to minimise fees and charges but also be able to access her money while she is abroad.
Any help would be much appreciated!

Consider using a free HSBC Currency Account to receive her salary with an associated/free Global Money Account/debit card for spending.

Revolut and Monese are other possible options

It would probably be a good idea for her to also have at least one f/x free credit card as well just in case one is useful (perhaps a Barclaycard Rewards and/or Halifax Clarity/Jaja one)

HSBC is a lot more complicated than Starling and has roughly the same kind bottom line exchange rate. 

Revolut and Monese aren't banks, i.e. do not have FSCS protection for your deposits.

Futuristic

Band7 said:

gt94sss2 said:

helencn said:

My daughter has a new job working as an entertainer in a hotel in Turkey. She is going to be employed by TUI Magic Life which is based in Germany so will be paid in Euros. Her contract is for one season so will be in Turkey from April to November 2023.
Can anyone offer some advise regarding the best bank account for her to open. She wants to minimise fees and charges but also be able to access her money while she is abroad.
Any help would be much appreciated!

Consider using a free HSBC Currency Account to receive her salary with an associated/free Global Money Account/debit card for spending.

Revolut and Monese are other possible options

It would probably be a good idea for her to also have at least one f/x free credit card as well just in case one is useful (perhaps a Barclaycard Rewards and/or Halifax Clarity/Jaja one)

HSBC is a lot more complicated than Starling and has roughly the same kind bottom line exchange rate. 

Revolut and Monese aren't banks, i.e. do not have FSCS protection for your deposits.

HSBC do not charge FX fee so it should be better in every way depending on if it actually gives market rate. I believe Starling has 0.4% fee to convert. 

Band7

Futuristic said:

Band7 said:

gt94sss2 said:

helencn said:

My daughter has a new job working as an entertainer in a hotel in Turkey. She is going to be employed by TUI Magic Life which is based in Germany so will be paid in Euros. Her contract is for one season so will be in Turkey from April to November 2023.
Can anyone offer some advise regarding the best bank account for her to open. She wants to minimise fees and charges but also be able to access her money while she is abroad.
Any help would be much appreciated!

Consider using a free HSBC Currency Account to receive her salary with an associated/free Global Money Account/debit card for spending.

Revolut and Monese are other possible options

It would probably be a good idea for her to also have at least one f/x free credit card as well just in case one is useful (perhaps a Barclaycard Rewards and/or Halifax Clarity/Jaja one)

HSBC is a lot more complicated than Starling and has roughly the same kind bottom line exchange rate. 

Revolut and Monese aren't banks, i.e. do not have FSCS protection for your deposits.

HSBC do not charge FX fee so it should be better in every way depending on if it actually gives market rate. I believe Starling has 0.4% fee to convert. 

What counts is the bottom line amount of money you get. It doesn't matter how the bank arrives at it.

One of the things that puts me off HSBC is that you can't easily see how much money you would get without actually having a balance in your Global Money account. Not sure whether they think this is userfriendly.

What is certain though is that no bank will exchange your money without taking a slice of it somehow - and that is fine, as long as it is not an unreasonable amount for the service.

pecunianonolet

I use HSBC Euro currency account and Global Money all the time. Debit card which comes with it works seamless, no issues and rates seem to be very good as well. Everything working instant 24/7. Not had any problems so far. Barclays offers something similar I believe but not sure if you get a debit card.

wmb194

Another option is Fineco. It offers a euro account with a euro debit card and is covered by the FSCS.

Marchitiello

As a sample comparison done by a fellow forum member when HSBC Global Money first launched in October 2022:

4th post down https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6395813/hsbc-global-money-account-launched/p1 

“Small comparison of rates right now, £20 GBP to Euro:

HSBC €22.97

Starling €22.90

Fineco €22.93

Wise: €22.67”

Band7

wmb194 said:

Another option is Fineco. It offers a euro account with a euro debit card and is covered by the FSCS.

Until a month ago, I have regularly used Fineco (italian bank) myself for many moons but would not recommend them now for a number of reasons

1. they are very slow with nearly everything they do 
2. they don't use Faster Payments
3. their CS is less than impressive and difficult to deal with. Email seems to be the only working communication method
4. I have quite recently had tremendous trouble transferring money to a UK bank