Euro account

Hi Folks

I run a small business, and since we have a few customers in continental Europe, I thought it might be a good wheeze to open an account in euros to make it easier for them to pay me.

You would have thought this would be a fairly common sort of thing to do these days. But I tried phoning my bank this morning (NatWest), and spoke to

5 different people, none of whom seemed to know how such things work in practice. No-one could tell me what the charges are for having such an account. They've promised to get back to me.

Does anyone have any experience of such things? At the moment, either I or my customers, or usually both, get completely screwed with bank charges any time anyone in euroland tries to pay money into my sterling account. Would having an account in euros help matters?

And does anyone else find it disturbing that NatWest should find it such a difficult request to deal with?

Best wishes

Adam

Reply to
Adam
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I know that the banks are not yet geared to Euro accounts but just having a quick look at the NatWest site I found refrences to international banking and currency accounts.

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I am with Alliance and Leicester and on the one occasion someone sent me Euros by a bank transfer I was not charged any transaction fees. That is a personal, not business account. You may find with a foreign currency account that you will pay more in various maintenance/transaction charges than if you just paid Euros into your sterling account and had it converted to sterling. Unless you will always keep the received money in Euros and/or need to pay in Euros it probably will work out more expensive. It does not really make it more difficult for your customers to pay into your sterling if you quote them in Euros

divoch

Reply to
divoch

I used to have a business Euro account with HSBC in England about 4 years back.

There was a minor monthly fee involved but can't remember specifics..

Adrian Smith

Reply to
Adrian Smith

a euro a/c may help for a sizeable number of transactions. a handful of transactions may leave you paying monthly fees which detract from any savings.

however, it is important to try to reduce transaction charges.

you must quote the IBAN and BIC codes for your bank a/c to foreign remitters.

the IBAN contains your bank sort code and a/c no along with check digits and some letters that refer to your bank. it was introduced to improve the accuracy of foreign payments. if one digit in the IBAN is wrong, the transaction cannot be performed. this is better than the money being received in a suspense a/c waiting to be claimed back.

the BIC identifies your bank branch to the remitting bank.

i believe this will stop you being charged to receive the money. without this data, the receiving bank will often charge to receive the money. the european commission has been pressuring banks for years to stop double-charging and i think the IBAN system is designed to reduce it.

also, do not accept cheques from overseas. these are particularly costly to cash as they have to be sent back to the country they were issued. ensure that you tell customers that you can only accept electronic payments.

i am not in the least surprised.

in my experience, bank policy appears to be to sack anyone over the age of about 50 leaving dumbos who know nothing.

Reply to
Scott2k5

Not really because I don't bank with them, but their lack of clue is one of the reasons I don't bank with them.

FWIW, I trade in the UK and Italy. I find it better to have an account in the UK (sterling) and one in Italy (euro). To transfer funds between accounts I use a currency broker which costs a lot less than using the banks own service. Every UK bank runs a rip-off operation for transferring fuinds from sterling to euro whether it is payment to a third party or transfer between accounts held at the same bank.

Reply to
Steve Firth

I think that Barclays offers a Euro-account.

No. Typical bank.

When I was taking out a new account at Barclays some years ago I was told that Euro accounts (I had not asked for one nor shown any interest in one) were *legally* only available to those who earned money in Euros... which was a load of nonsense of course. However I could not be bothered to point out the error of the ways of the monkey... opps... I meant clerk opening my account since I just wanted the paperwork dealt with asap and enjoy the rest of my lunch break in the pub.

Why not open an account in a Euroland country and get access to all the various Continental banking features?

Axel

Reply to
axel

Can you post details? Irma

Inviato da X-Privat.Org - Registrazione gratuita

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Reply to
Irma Troll

I use xetrade.com, they are one of the few brokers where you can do the whole transfer online with no phone calls etc. required. You do need to make a couple of phone calls to set up your account with them.

Reply to
tinnews

I use this lot:

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I've been using them since they were a handful of blokes working from an office with no capital to speak of. They've always provided a first class service, transferring funds based on trust and simply requiring a comittment to pay with 24 hours of intiating the transfer.

Due to fuckwitted government regulations it's now a tad more difficult than it used to be but still faster and more reliable than any bank that I have used.

Reply to
Steve Firth

another couple to try:-

Custom House

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HIFX:
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....the only type of regulation in this country :-(

Reply to
Scott2k5

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