HSBC Foreign Currency Current Account

Any experiences? Good? Bad?

[quantum]

I am debating whether to open on of these. Do any UK Adsensers already have one?

No minimum balance required and the minimum yearly charge is £70.

HSBC charges £5-10 for depositing dollar cheques into a Sterling current account. (This is already cheap compared to the £30+ per cheque Natwest wanted to steal from me! And Natwest wouldn't even negotiate the cheque whereas with HSBC you have the money in 2-3 days!)

With dollar cheques expected every month or so the charges would be almost equivalent. But with a foreign currency current account you could wait for the exchange rates to get better. It certainly looks good but...

Are there any caveats to opening one of these that I can't see?

[OptiRex]

Hi quantum

I'm peeved with my bank about this too. I'm with Barclays and they charge me about USD 30 every time for depositing a cheque plus a quarterly charge for being thousands in credit.

I've been looking all over the place and found that Lloyds TSB do a US Dollar or Euro debit card from Jersey and so long as you are USD 2000 in credit there are supposedly no charges.

If you find anything else let me know!

[dregs33]

Hi

I am interseted in this.

If we could have a HSBC dollar account with a charge card then we could use Adwords US and pay 0.04 cents min per click.

So 12 Adsense cheques = £120 per year

Dollar account = £70

This makes sense to me.

When I enquired they said to have a dollar account was only worth it for $100,000 per year, seems like this has changed

dregs33

[quantum]

Don't know if the HSBC dollar current account comes with a charge card but I think only a cheque book so you can draw cheques from it for which there is a fee.

I asked and transfers to a Sterling account do not have a fee but are subject to exchange rates.

Still seems good.

[nutsandbolts]

I have this account. It's quite good apart from having to pay to deposit a cheque. I don't have a separate dollar credit card of any sort with them - just a paying in book and a huge looking dollar cheque book which looks very impressive.

However, cannot see the dollar account on the HSBC online business website.

Luckily, phone banking does have access and it's always fun to hear the friendly Indian people telling me how few dollars I have in there!

They also send regular statements through the post.

[quantum]

Sorry if I sound confused but I am a little.

Nutsandbolts you said you are charged to deposit a cheque. Does that apply to any currency cheque including dollar cheques?

And is that the standard cheque negotiation charge added on top of the £35 half yearly fee or included in the "cheque charge" described in below in point 1?

I ask because the account pack states and I quote -

"Account maintenance charges:
- £35 or currency equivalent minimum charge for half year or cheque charge (whichever is greater except for euro accounts)

and then says...
- All other international services attract our standard transaction tarriff charges including cheque negotiation/collection charges paid into a Foreign Currency Account. Ask at your local branch for details."

I queried this and my branch said same currency cheques should not attract a fee i.e. dollar cheques deposited into a dollar current account are not charged.

[morpheus83]

With the $ on a steady decline. I would not prefer such an account. Maybe if adsense issues checks in Euros :D
ABN AMRO (India) has a premium account with a minimum balance of around 2k $ (1 lac INR). With this account there are no bank charges at all not even for clearing Foreign checks. Maybe you can ask at HSBC UK.

[djblamire]

Have you looked at Citibank?

They don't have any charges for their US Dollar accounts (savings account), and do not charge for depositing US Dollar cheques :)

Daniel

[petra]

I'm with Barclays and they charge me about USD 30 every time for depositing a cheque plus a quarterly charge for being thousands in credit.

I was with NatWest and closed my account with them because of this. I moved to Barclays and they said that if you wait and accumulate a few checks they will only charge a one time fee for all of them (£10)

I'm not sure if there is an equivilent amount from the corresponding bank though.

But the best is Citibank because thats also google's bank and they do not charge but they have a condition that you need to have your salary deposited with them or something like that.

[OptiRex]

Well I spent a weekend looking at all these different accounts and I've applied to Citibank and HSBC Offshore in Jersey. The HSBC account gives me a debit card which is what I really want. Standard Chartered used to do this card but their minimum deposit is $50,000.

I moved to Barclays and they said that if you wait and accumulate a few checks they will only charge a one time fee for all of them (£10)

Not according to the charges I have, they've always been a minimum $30!

However I have also just received a Dollar payment direct into my account from Turkey, not a cheque, and the fee charged was £6.00.

Any bank with their head screwed on the right way round could take quite a few accounts if they were so inclined however they seem to be quite content sending out £25 reminder letters when one is a penny overdrawn!