USD Bank Account in the UK

Kanesh

Hi, I work in the UK for a US based international company. My company offers shares (ESPP) for employees at a discount and I have registered to buy shares regularly every quarter. The fund to buy the shares will be deducted from my salary. One of my friends suggested that I consider opening a USD account in the UK to help me sell my shares later. Any suggestion on the Bank account I could consider?

PloughmansLunch

Who do you bank with at the moment? Barclays and HSBC both offer free USD currency accounts. Lloyds you’ll have to pay for. I’m not sure if any of the other UK high street banks offer something similar, but there are quite a few fintechs/apps that should fit the bill too. 

WillPS

Starling is a no brainer for this, IMHO.

Ignore, getting USD and EUR mixed up.

retiredbanker1

Do you actually need a dollar bank account for this?
Does your employer not have a system for selling the shares for you? (A friend works for ASDA and before they were taken over had sharesave in their $ shares and had no problem selling them)

eDicky

WillPS said:

Starling is a no brainer for this, IMHO.

Starling Bank offer a USD account..?

sausage_time

What broker does your US employer use @Kanesh?  I have worked for a couple of US companies and they have used Schwab and ETrade.  Both let me sell shares and wire the proceeds.  In the past few years I used Wise to do the conversion.

plantation_2

sausage_time said:

What broker does your US employer use @Kanesh?  I have worked for a couple of US companies and they have used Schwab and ETrade.  Both let me sell shares and wire the proceeds.  In the past few years I used Wise to do the conversion.

Another vote for using Wise. You can have a dollar account with Wise so transfer from broker of your sale proceeds is dollar to dollar and therefore low/nil cost and can then convert within Wise and send on to your existing UK GBP account

WillPS

eDicky said:

WillPS said:

Starling is a no brainer for this, IMHO.

Starling Bank offer a USD account..?

Ah balls, I didn't realise it was business only and chargeable. Sorry, ignore this.

FredTrump

Another vote here for Wise. The bonus here is they can accept domestic US credits either free or low cost. 

sausage_time

FredTrump said:

Another vote here for Wise. The bonus here is they can accept domestic US credits either free or low cost. 

That's a good point - I can send US$  from Schwab or ETrade to Wise using ACH (like BACS but with an American accent) at no cost.   Transfer is overnight.