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Looking for ONSHORE EURO BUSINESS account with ability to pay European accounts online

Hi,

I'm being stiffed by my bank ..... but then what's new? (The government and whole country is being stiffed by a bunch of otherwise incompetant bankers who ought to go bust (personally) along with their banks.)

But that's another matter.

My problem is that I am looking for an ONSHORE bank account in Euros which I can open in my company's name, and which I can manage online AND MAKE OVERSEAS PAYMENTS (in ?) with internet banking.

This is the *killer* ...... I want to be able to make internet bank payments from this bank accounts to other people's account (business/corporate/personal, whatever) in Europe ... and to do so *without* being ripped off by bank charges!

At the moment, every payment abroad is costing me £28 (in ?) to send from the UK and ?22 to receive in Europe. I was under the impression that banks had to charge the same for domestic as well as international

I've managed to open a personal Euro account with a European bank (as I work across the channel) and their internet service lets me make payments (in Euros only admittedly) to any EU bank account .... including UK ones, and they don't try to hit me with heavy bank charges every time I want to make or receive a payment.

BUT .... I need a UK account in Euros (to avoid exchange rate losses) from which to make payments due from the business.

Any thoughts anyone????

Reply to
Richard
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I don't have an answer, I'm afraid, but I guess the question you should be asking banks is whether they support SEPA:

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It appears there is a good deal of foot-dragging going on, so you may be out of luck.

In fact I sent Barclays the same enquiry (but in respect of a personal euro account) and their answer suggested they didn't even understand the question properly.

Reply to
fonn_volt_west

Yup - they operate SEPA transfers, though they try not to mention them they SEPA box is on the transfer request form.

So far SEPA is a load of bollox. It is *supposed* to make banks charge the same for an international Euro->Euro payment as they would charge for a domestic transfer. MY UK BANK charges me £19 for a SEPA payment. I don't know yet how much my NL bank will charge me to receive it.

Since when have I paid a £19 charge for an ordinary account-to-account payment (eg made by internet banking)? The answer of course is never. So how come the bank gets away with a £19 charge?

The answer is that it is a EURO account. They will charge me £19 to transfer money (in Euros) within the UK too ... so same charge!

I thought of paying by cheque ...... BUT !!! .... cheques are specifically excluded from the harmonisation rules - so they can charge more for a "transfer" than they would to clear a cheque.

Also, just to make doubly sure, I noticed that my UK bank's Euro cheques are marked "Payable only in Great Britain" - so I can't use my Euro cheque book to pay a Euro account in the Netherlands.

They are foot dragging all right. My bank manager has written to me explaining that for a £500 registration fee, I can have internet access to manage my Euro account - though I still don't know if that access would give me internet based SEPA payments to a Netherlands Euro account.

Oh they understand all right ..... they just don't want to stop milking their customers for international transfer charges.

Reply to
Richard

FWIW Citibank's Euro current accounts used to have free SEPA payments. But last month they imposed a 10 pound charge. I'm pretty sure they don't charge that in their European arms.

I did try to think of anyone who might have Euro business accounts, but I couldn't find any.

Cheques are a bit of a red herring... some European countries use them very rarely. Since the Eurocheque scheme was abandoned I think cross-border cheque use has diminished quite a bit. I don't actually know any UK bank that would take Barclays Euro cheques without converting them to sterling.

The only other ideas I had were to try banks in Ireland or Spain (halifax.es) which will allow non-residents to have accounts. The Halifax account's charges are more reasonable than Citi's, but you have to pay an annual fee (EUR25 or something). Or there's the offshore lot... but they probably aren't interested unless you have a few million.

Theo

Reply to
Theo Markettos

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