Funds into Global Money Account

Marksfish

I currently have a Wise account which I pay Euros to my Spanish account and also into my Starling Euro account for spending. I intend to ditch the Starling account, so can I use Wise to pay Euros into the HSBC account, If I use the HSBC sort code on my card or the IBAN, will it be added to the available Euro currency on the account or allocated to GBP? Anyone tried and know the answer please?

prettyandfluffy

I transferred € from my Starling € account and it arrived at HSBC converted to sterling but that could well have been user error.  Ask them via online chat maybe?

friolento

You need an HSBC Currency Account to preserve the EUR currency. This account can receive Euros. It takes 2 working days from application to when you can use it.

Once your money is in the Currency Account, you can then go into your Global Money account and pull the Euros in.

BUT. The only way you can then spend your Euros is with the Global Money debit card, or by exchanging it to GBP. No Euro SOs, no DDs, no electronic payments from the Global Money account.

Depending on how you want to use your Euros, you might be better off keeping your Starling.

PloughmansLunch

friolento said:

BUT. The only way you can then spend your Euros is with the Global Money debit card, or by exchanging it to GBP. No Euro SOs, no DDs, no electronic payments from the Global Money account.

You can send foreign currency from GMA via the ‘send money internationally’ section. It’s quite straightforward to set up accounts as payees too to make things easier, though not instant to transfer out of GMA either way.

SebH

The HSBC Currency Account in Euros also accepts SEPA Direct Debits and you can set up Standing Orders too.

Assuming you would be opening one anyway to receive Euros directly in the first place, it’s no great difficulty to use that account for Direct Debits as you can transfer money between the Euro Currency Account and the Euro Global Money Account instantly, and in both directions, via the app.

Obviously it’s slightly clunky that one is a “normal” account (with Direct Debits, ability to pay in and withdraw cash in HSBC branches in the UK, receive international payments - but no debit card) and the other is a “travel card” which only offers a debit card and payment in/out along with currency conversion, but overall both accounts used in conjunction work quite well and offer useful facilities.

The HSBC Currency Account (Euro) does have a GB IBAN though, which marks it out as a UK-based account and this is occasionally not a benefit as some banks inside the EU may not treat this properly (some make extra charges, which they shouldn’t as the UK is part of SEPA, and others “helpfully” try to convert your money to GBP as they assume that, since it’s the UK currency, it’s the currency of the account).

If you face any issues like this, you could use Bankera as an intermediary (sending money there first, then on to HSBC). But they are an e-money institution so have no deposit protection. As such, I would not recommend that you keep significant sums in that account for any length of time. Bankera is one of the few accounts with an EU-country IBAN which is still available for UK residents to open.

friolento

PloughmansLunch said:

friolento said:

BUT. The only way you can then spend your Euros is with the Global Money debit card, or by exchanging it to GBP. No Euro SOs, no DDs, no electronic payments from the Global Money account.

You can send foreign currency from GMA via the ‘send money internationally’ section. It’s quite straightforward to set up accounts as payees too to make things easier, though not instant to transfer out of GMA either way.

Oh thanks, hadn‘t noticed that. I am still using Wise in preference but I like the FSCS protection that comes with HSBC or Starling, so might change to one of these

penners324

Keeping your Starling account seems an easier solution than opening HSBC 

Marksfish

I got the answer from HSBC today:

I believe you're planning to top up your Global Money account from an external account directly. In this case, your Global Money account is only capable of receiving money in GBP. So, the funds will be allocated to the GBP wallet in your Global Money account upon receipt.

Not the answer I was hoping for to be honest, but in line what everyone above has said. I did try an experiment of moving funds to the EUR part of the account yesterday and was given a rate if 1.14, Wise was giving 1.1485, plus fees, so not too bad really. So long as I have enough Euro on the account, spending on the card will come from that part of the account too. Not sure it is what I want long term, but will give it a go.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

friolento

Today I lost nearly 40 Euros when transferring some 800 Euros from a Eurozone bank to the HSBC currency account. Apparently it was outside HSBC's control and the money was kept by one or more intermediary banks. Nothing like this has ever happened when I used Wise for my frequent transfers.

I will never ever use the HSBC accounts again and am in the process of closing them.

SebH

Would you mind naming and shaming the bank concerned, friolento?

I suspect that the IBAN issue that I alluded to in my previous post in this thread may have been the problem. The EU bank possibly charged a fee (taken off the amount sent) for an “outside of EU” transfer. They are not supposed to do this, but anecdotal reports of it happening have been cropping up more and more since Brexit. You could complain to the bank, noting that the UK is inside the SEPA zone, you were requesting a SEPA transfer and it is forbidden in the ECB’s SEPA scheme rules to “discriminate” between different IBAN country codes if the country is a member of the scheme.

If this was, indeed, the root of the issue then an intermediate hop via Bankera may have allowed you to keep the full amount (since they have an EU IBAN on their accounts, you would not have suffered from an IBAN discrimination issue at the sending bank). Wise works similarly to Bankera as their Euro account is, nominally, “inside” the Eurozone because the IBAN has an EU country code, once again. This may explain why you never previously had issues using Wise. Although I personally would try Bankera as transfers are not entirely fee-free via Wise.

Assuming that all of that is right, then HSBC are correct that it is not their fault as the fee is probably being levied by the sending bank. I realise that’s no comfort to you now, but it’s no good reason to get rid of an FSCS protected currency account in my view. So you are perhaps a bit hasty in closing your HSBC accounts. A better suggestion might be to try another EU bank which won’t levy these fees! Or, as said above, send with an extra hop via Bankera or Wise in the future.

friolento

Both, the EU Bank and HSBC wash their hands and point at unknown/unnamed intermediaries. I am not sure the theory that a GB IBAN is the root cause as I did try a small 10 Euro test payment earlier, and there was no charge.

I know it's a SEPA transfer and no fees should have incurred.

Transfers via Wise always work like a dream, and it will be them who I use in future. Their rates are just as good as HSBC's, and it doesn't matter that they calculate the exchanged amount in a different way to HSBC. I would have liked a FSCS protected account but I am not risking further extortionate charges.

I am not interested in experimenting with any others.

My HSBC Global Money account is now already closed but the team who can close the HSBC currency account were not available so I need to chase them tomorrow.