Opening a euro bank a/c in Rep of Ireland from UK?

Hi - I'm soon going to be selling my home in the UK and moving to the republic of Ireland, where I'll be staying in temp accommodation (prob a motor caravan!) for a while before buying a house there.

I'd like to open a euro-denominated account in Ireland while I'm still at my UK address.

Would prefer one that doesn't have charges.

I only want to open it with a small sum, e.g. 10 euros. Then I'll transfer the proceeds of the UK house sale to it, and I'll have the funds available for use when I turn up.

Can someone advise as to what bank will do this? Preferably a biggie. Preferably, although not necessarily, with a presence in the UK.

If it's of any relevance, I'm a UK citizen and not an Irish one, and will not be seeking employment in Ireland, as I am retired.

Many thanks in advance.

Michael

Reply to
hanrahan398
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Opening an account in Ireland requires ID etc and you need to sign forms so you'll need to be there in person.

I'd recommend contacting one of the banks that has a UK branch near you (AIB, Bank of Ireland, etc) and ask them how you can do what you need to. I'm sure you're not the first in this situation.

Reply to
dino

wrote

Contact a few of the main banks operating in Ireland and ask them what you need to do. The opening of 'offshore' accounts for offshore residents has been quite common here, so common in fact that locals were opening them to avoid tax on interest payments and it resulted in huge investigations by our Revenue authorities! So expect particular attention to be paid to evidence of where you are resident! (And don't forget to tell them when you become an Irish resident).

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The UK & Ireland have joint tax agreements and you may want to get some independent financial advice to ensure that you don't fall victim of the tax authorities in either country.

Here's a link on generally moving to Ireland that you might find useful:

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Reply to
James

Most of these will charge the arse off you for accounts with small balances or little activity, and BoS only has 20-odd branches in the whole country! I've been banking with NIB

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for years. Their online banking is the best around and they have no current account charges, with no minimum balance required.

U
Reply to
Ulick Magee

"Ulick Magee" wrote

Not for a deposit/savings account.

Reply to
James

They're sod all use unless you have a local current account to transfer it into when you want to USE the money. I presume he will be wanting to actually do something with this money instead of just leaving it sit there at a pre-tax interest rate less than inflation.

U
Reply to
Ulick Magee

"Ulick Magee" wrote

I wouldn't agree. You seem to be saying that in order to do anything with the money from his house sale he would have to transfer it from a deposit account to a current account in order to get access to use it? When he wants to move the money on he can do it just as easily from a deposit/savings account as from a current account. AIUI he just wants a mechanism to get the money to Ireland in Euros and have banking access to it. He may of course need to open a current account when he moves to Ireland with enough funds for his immediate needs but surely not his entire house proceeds? IMHO for the bulk of his house sale money he would be very foolish at that stage not to look at the various financial products available in all financial institutions (such as high yield savings accounts) until he makes a decision on eg buying a house in Ireland (rather than put it all in a current account).

To the OP, you might want to have a look through the Consumer Information section of the Irish Financial Regulator site

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In particular look through the 'current publications' section for various financial information.

Reply to
James

...

I can't speak for Ireland (and obviously there are a couple of people here who can!) but I opened a French bank account without going to France.

Reply to
Chris

In message , James writes

Weren't the locals opening the accounts outside Eire at a subsidiary of their main Irish Bank, say at the branch in Isle of Man for example?

Yes. The EU Savings Directive will require the Irish Bank to either advise the UK HMR&C of all gross interest paid or alternatively deduct at source a witholding tax, cunningly called 'retention tax' initially at 15% then rising to 20% then 35%, threequarters of which is sent to UK without attribution of the source. The deduction of the retention tax does not relieve the UK resident of paying the rest of any tax due.

Reply to
John Boyle

When I lived in the UK I had an account with NatWest. On one of my visits to Ireland, a few months before I moved, I opened an account with Ulster Bank (also part of RBS Group) as I thought that would save any complications! They were more than happy to do that before I had an Irish address (think I had a recent statement with me too so that they could see how I managed the account).

If, in your case, it's not quite that simple, the Irish bank which you choose can always ask your UK bank for a reference (although your UK bank will probably charge you for providing it).

Ulster Bank do have a current account without charges

If you're wanting a cheque book and card, there will be government charges for these - not sure what they are at the moment, so you may need slightly more than ?10 in the account to start with.

You'll almost certainly need to visit a branch to open an account - something to do with Money Laundering regulations. You'll need to take your passport with you, too, as proof of identity.

Hope this helps

Julie

Reply to
Julie

"John Boyle" wrote

Yes but even worse was that bank employees in Ireland were colluding with local bank customers and opening non-resident accounts for them without any need for them to travel further than their local branch! IIRC foreign addresses were being invented for the paperwork.

Reply to
James

My husband & I have just opened a current A/c in IE form which will we will pay bills etc. for a holiday house we've bought nr Wexford.

AIB required:

Passport(s) or Driving License(s), plural because it was to be a joint account. UK Utility Bill in both names - (**see below) Recent statement i.e. less than three months old from UK Bank , from whom a reference would be sought - (**see below, as well).

**to our surprise we were required to show both utility bill and bank statements which showed our full fore-names, rather than just our initials. Getting utility bills in both names was hard enough, because most bills are in my husband's name, so we presented our UK Council Tax papers, which are joint. These were rejected since they only showed initials not full forenames. Ditto the Bank statement. We were only able to resolve it by getting our Bank in UK to change the name on our joint account from initials to full forenames.

While this was going on, we tried BoI via the phone: Similar needs but the utility bill had to be for an Irish address. When I explained that opening the account was all about buying a house that we didn't yet own, he said, "Tough, I guess you can't open an account, then."

It can be done but it takes preserverance.

And then there's charges! Not only do IE Banks still make cahrges on current accounts but the Govt. charges Tax, too! I get annoyed but then I realise how cheap the petrol is in Ireland, the tax has to come from somewhere.

MJ

Reply to
muriel_jenkins

No, they don't, provided you avoid the big two.

U
Reply to
Ulick Magee

More from Muriel:

The other thing to watch is that your solicitor is effectively (no not effectively, totally) a servant of the State and very supine to it.

It's like UK, pre Thatcher.... lots of fees but nobody rocks the boat.!

When you come to sell, any Capital Gains Tax will be assesed by your solicitor and deducted from the the sale proceeds before you get them.

No waiting to submit a Tax return and then paying in the Jan following the end of the tax year.

For Tax collection matters Ireland is a tad to the left of Alabania......... Obviously. a modern country can't operate with solicitors acting for the state rather than their clients. They'll grow up.

But what do I know? It all must have been brought about by rampant cheating. by solicitors and others.

MJ

Reply to
muriel_jenkins

Hi Michael,

Try

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It has all the banks in ireland listed along with detailed product information.

Hope it helps.

Cheers, Aidan

Reply to
Horovitz

Bank of Scotland seem to offer exceptional terms at the moment, although they are not completely set up yet, I think. They offered to pay all our legal and survey costs for a mortgage recently. As it happened we ended up going to our usual bank, BoI, who not only had no such offer but were painfully slow and inefficient. I find this whole business of eg going to a Commissioner of Oaths to swear (for 50 euro) that you are you is very annoying.

Reply to
Timothy Murphy

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