Does anybody know of any such thing as a bank account that allows you to swap money back and forth in different currencies?

Im spending a fortune at Barclays, transferring minor amounts to suppliers, agents etc in numerous foreign currencies within the EU. I figure it would be way easier to have a eurozone based account that would allow me to just transfer money make payments to various contries on demand?

I think eBanca in Czech does something like this.

Yes Natwest in Gibraltar offer a multi-currency account which has 17 possible currencies and will do exactly what you want. The only issue is that making a physical payment in non-GBP will be the usual 20 pounds.

I use it for euro and they give me ECB - 0.25% on credit balances ( and Base - 0.25% for sterling).

Just to add , I know that you can get a euro debit card on the euro element of the mulit-currency element of the account to mitigate the cross-border charges

James

I am in a similiar position to you and presumably many other investors where you have properties in several different countries and need to make various payments some of which are quite small. I am not convinced a multi currency acct is necessarily the right solution although it may have it uses.

In each country I have property I have atleast one acct setup (often with the bank I used for the mortgage), I transfer a chunk of money into this acct (to last say 3 months of expenses) and then using the internet access I have for these foreign accts I make LOCAL payments to the various suppliers, management agents, setup standing orders to the mortgage accts etc etc. This way I just have the transfer fee & exchange hit once for the transfer from the UK (you also get a better rate by transferring one larger amount than lots of smaller amounts). It is then practical to transfer small sums locally aswell.

I would have thought that even with a multi currency acct each international transfer will still cost the std £20-30 so it is not a final solution. I use First Direct for my transfers from the UK as they give as good rates as the currency brokers and it is easier to just have the money in this acct for when I need to make a transfer.

Hope this helps, anyone else do things differently ?
Antony

I closed down my Ebanka acct in Czech because their internet banking was so cumbersome, I would not recommend them.

Folks, I've just seen that First Direct are introducing overseas accounts, though I've yet to investigate the exact offerings: http: / /www .firstdirect .com /travel/

Also, somewhat peeved that the bank holding my mortgage account in Prague is taking 1% for all incoming transfers. This charge doesn't apply if the payment comes from another Czech bank, so I'm looking for a Czech Bank which waives the 1% incoming payment as my currency broker says they all should!

Any further suggestions?

"I closed down my Ebanka acct in Czech because their internet banking was so cumbersome"

"Also, somewhat peeved that the bank holding my mortgage account in Prague is taking 1% for all incoming transfers"


Has anyone found a Czech bank (multicurrency or not), with good service and/or low fees?