isorg - 4:45 pm on Feb 4, 2004 (gmt 0)

I have opened a citibank.co.uk account where I have a Sterling account, a Euro account and a US Dollar account. As long as you keep £2000 across any of the accounts there is no annual fee. You can transfer money from one to the other online whenever you like and pull it out altogether with a Visa debit card if you like. Goes without saying, you can post them your US or UK cheques in an envelope and they will deposit the money at the going rate. There is no commission, but the rate is tailored to take a commission into account.

If you look back upto 1985, the rate has broken the 2:1 barrier only once: http*://uk.finance.yahoo.com/m5?s=GBP&t=USD&a=1&c=3 It follows a sinusoidal pattern. Read that graph any way you want, and place your bets.....

I agree with what alex_h says. But people like me in the UK want to hold on to the cheques until a better day (which almost certainly will come!) when they will be worth more in pounds, and sticking them in a US dollar account and forgetting about it gives a way of doing that. Otherwise you're looking at losing a lot of money for no good reason.