Anyone experience with Barclays foreign currency accounts?

WastedWords

Although HSBC website does appear to indicate a $7 charge for incoming USD to currency account, from my experience HSBC have not charged any fee. 

USD from HSBC currency to GM is free. 

Outgoing USD from HSBC GM is also fee free ( to Fineco at least)
 

PloughmansLunch

Hopefully the UK format doesn't trigger some currency conversion or you'll be at the mercy of either Paypal or Barclays crappy exchange rates. 

I'm not sure how you'd actually extract your funds from this Barclays account either, unless this is just flagged up for me because it's only been open a few days. Maybe to withdraw/transfer would involve a branch visit / CS phonecall? Neither of which I can be bothered to do to retrieve a couple of Euro test payment so it's currently unfunded.
  

pecunianonolet

WastedWords said:

Although HSBC website does appear to indicate a $7 charge for incoming USD to currency account, from my experience HSBC have not charged any fee. 

USD from HSBC currency to GM is free. 

Outgoing USD from HSBC GM is also fee free ( to Fineco at least)
 

So you are saying that you have the HSBC USD currency account and were able to receive a USD transaction (not from any of your other HSBC accounts) and were not charged a fee? That would totally contradict what they state with the $7 fee for incoming and outgoing payments. 

From currency account to GM is free as it is an internal transfer. 

PloughmansLunch said:

Hopefully the UK format doesn't trigger some currency conversion or you'll be at the mercy of either Paypal or Barclays crappy exchange rates. 

I'm not sure how you'd actually extract your funds from this Barclays account either, unless this is just flagged up for me because it's only been open a few days. Maybe to withdraw/transfer would involve a branch visit / CS phonecall? Neither of which I can be bothered to do to retrieve a couple of Euro test payment so it's currently unfunded.
  

That is indeed strange. Why have a currency account if you can't pay out from it. Makes indeed no sense.


When I try to add a new bank account to Paypal it gives me a list of banks or I can add manually. However, they ask for account number and sort code so the account to add needs to follow the UK format. My primary currency with Paypal is GBP and any currency I have will always automatically exchanged to GBP in this case and I can withdraw to any of my linked GBP accounts. However, Paypal said that the primary currency can be changed, so if I change from GBP to USD, I should be able to withdraw my USD balance without conversion on Paypal side. 

Would I now transfer USD to a GBP bank account my bank would to the conversion instead of Paypal. So if Barclays/HSBC/Fineco/Others offer a USD currency account and provide a account number and sort code there should be no conversion on Paypal side as I withdraw in my primary currency and no conversion from the bank either as they receive the currency denominated to the account.

Getting it out of Paypal without their robbing exchange rate would be the first task. The second would be to get it to anywhere with a favourable exchange rate so I could exchange to GBP without major losses, or alternatively stick into Wise for USD interest or even Revolut, although the rate for Revolut is bad if you not have one of their premium accounts.

PloughmansLunch

Fineco does have a UK sort code and account number for it's multi-currency account, but it looks like you'd have to use Swift for USD - this is under 'How to Fund':

pecunianonolet

Just called Barclays and they said receiving USD or any currency they offer under 100GBP value is fee free, anything above 100 GBP value they have a charge.

Sending money from the currency account to another country is classed as international payment and comes with a charge depending on country. 

WastedWords

pecunianonolet said:

So you are saying that you have the HSBC USD currency account and were able to receive a USD transaction (not from any of your other HSBC accounts) and were not charged a fee? That would totally contradict what they state with the $7 fee for incoming and outgoing payments. 

I agree this seems to contradict what HSBC website states but is my experience with multiple transfers in to HSBC USD currency account of 3 to 5 figure sums from an external account and no charges made. 

Transfer from GM to Fineco was a $100 trial to see if there would be charges if I decided to take advantage of better exchange rates. 

pecunianonolet

WastedWords said:

pecunianonolet said:

So you are saying that you have the HSBC USD currency account and were able to receive a USD transaction (not from any of your other HSBC accounts) and were not charged a fee? That would totally contradict what they state with the $7 fee for incoming and outgoing payments. 

I agree this seems to contradict what HSBC website states but is my experience with multiple transfers in to HSBC USD currency account of 3 to 5 figure sums from an external account and no charges made. 

Transfer from GM to Fineco was a $100 trial to see if there would be charges if I decided to take advantage of better exchange rates. 

Just called HSBC and they said any inbound payment of USD is subject to a $7 charge. I specifically asked if it makes a difference if comes from a UK bank as it would not be an international payment and a domestic payment in foreign currency.

Maybe your USD currency account is from a time when they didn't charge fees? 

plantation_2

pecunianonolet said:

eDicky said:

What's your exact purpose..?

To withdraw USD from Paypal without bad Paypal conversion and potentially move into Wise for interest. However, the latter I am not sure yet as Wise is an investment and not a savings account as such. May also just hold the USD in the bank account.

I think you could absolutely use Wise for this as it will give you a local US account number. No need for a separate foreign currency account and Wise

pecunianonolet

plantation_2 said:

pecunianonolet said:

eDicky said:

What's your exact purpose..?

To withdraw USD from Paypal without bad Paypal conversion and potentially move into Wise for interest. However, the latter I am not sure yet as Wise is an investment and not a savings account as such. May also just hold the USD in the bank account.

I think you could absolutely use Wise for this as it will give you a local US account number. No need for a separate foreign currency account and Wise

Yes, it does give me a local US account number and one for SWIFT transfers. Wise now charging 4.14 GBP fee for both. last week the local one was free and they said you have to use the ACH number for it to be free. 

Revolut offers me also local account details. 

The problem is that I can only link a bank account to Paypal with account number and sort code. 

I was now thinking if I can just add the virtual debit card to Paypal and withdraw to the card. Question will be now if the funds will be converted on either Revolut or Wise.  

WastedWords

pecunianonolet said:

WastedWords said:

pecunianonolet said:

So you are saying that you have the HSBC USD currency account and were able to receive a USD transaction (not from any of your other HSBC accounts) and were not charged a fee? That would totally contradict what they state with the $7 fee for incoming and outgoing payments. 

I agree this seems to contradict what HSBC website states but is my experience with multiple transfers in to HSBC USD currency account of 3 to 5 figure sums from an external account and no charges made. 

Transfer from GM to Fineco was a $100 trial to see if there would be charges if I decided to take advantage of better exchange rates. 

Just called HSBC and they said any inbound payment of USD is subject to a $7 charge. I specifically asked if it makes a difference if comes from a UK bank as it would not be an international payment and a domestic payment in foreign currency.

Maybe your USD currency account is from a time when they didn't charge fees? 

Account was opened less than a year ago. Account fee documentation was last updated in 2021 and states $7 receiving fee. I have never been charged.