Savings into Euros Offshore or Ireland?

sidsausage

Thinking of purchasing a property in europe not quite sure where yet probably (portugal or italy). But want to get my money into a euros savings account now.

Wondering if I should go offshore or Eire?
I'm aware of the respective compensation schemes of Eire, Iom and Channel Islands.

Am I right in assuming I should use a Forex company to move from sterling to euros for either Irish or offshore??

And that fees for transferring the euros (in a few months time) from an Irish/offshore account to a Portuguese or Italian bank would be similar/minimal?

As the interest rates for Ireland and offshore are pretty similar is there anything I'm missing - I must admit i'm a bit suspicious of offshore accounts.

bryanb

Surely Eire is offshore? However, are you trying to avoid tax? Why not invest here? Do you anticipate the Pound falling further against the Euro?

greeneye

bryanb wrote: »

Surely Eire is offshore? However, are you trying to avoid tax? Why not invest here? Do you anticipate the Pound falling further against the Euro?

bryanb wrote: »

Do you anticipate the Pound falling further against the Euro?

Definitely ECB very hawkish yesterday and suggested they may well raise interest rates next month.

You can't avoid tax on offshore accounts anymore you pay the same as UK.
There's something about deferring when you pay it i.e what tax year it falls in but not really relevant to me.

Eire is EU not "offshore".

purch

is there anything I'm missing

No not really.

Yes there are a number of 'specialist' FX providors that you could use for a transaction such as this, many of them mentioned on previous threads in this section. You should 'shop' around.

If you are comfortable with the compensation arrangements in the places you mentioned then I would open an account and put the money there.

There should not be much difference between interest rates on EUR accounts, as theoretically they should all relate to whatever the ECB sets as it's discount rate....but again it'll be worth shopping around.

Most of the so called 'Offshore' Banks based in the Channel Islands or IoM are wholly owned subsidaries of UK or European Banking groups so the counterparty risk is similar.

As mentioned above you cannot legally avoid paying Tax on an account held in one of these centres.

As for future transfer charges.....we are back to the same thing....shopping around for the best deal.

greeneye

ignore ignore - 2 people using the same computer getting their posting ID's mixed up. :+)

sidsausage

purch wrote: »

As for future transfer charges.....we are back to the same thing....shopping around for the best deal.

Are you referring to moving from an Irish/offshore euro account onto a say a portuguese account?
If so I was under the impression it would be minimal say £30/£40 to move 100,000 euros to portugal as they are both EU countries.
But unsure about charges for sending from euro "offshore accounts" to Portugal are they actually part of the EU banking system?


Oh and yep have set up 4 forex accounts last night.

purch

:rotfl: :rotfl:

I was just about to type a reply to greeneye....when exactly the same post was made by sidsausage :rotfl: :rotfl:

Weird that :eek: !!!

Methinks someone is messin about

sidsausage

purch wrote: »

:rotfl: :rotfl:

I was just about to type a reply to greeneye....when exactly the same post was made by sidsausage :rotfl: :rotfl:

Weird that :eek: !!!

Methinks someone is messin about

Just edited the other post - using a friends computer (but different browsers logged into different id's) and getting the id's mixed up - as in the posts from greeneye were actually from me - would be grateful to hear your reply to the question about sending euros onwards.