UK international bank account

waz99 · Post by **waz99** » Tue, 02 Oct 2007 2:02 pm

Can anyone recommend an international UK bank savings account for British nationals living overseas? I'm looking for something with good interest rates, no administration charges, and low hassle (and costs) for converting Sing dollars currency to Sterling.

Post by **sundaymorningstaple** » Tue, 02 Oct 2007 3:11 pm

waz99 wrote:Can anyone recommend an international UK bank savings account for British nationals living overseas? I'm looking for something with good interest rates, no administration charges, and low hassle (and costs) for converting Sing dollars currency to Sterling.

If you find one, let us ALL know. Sounds like pie in the sky to me.

T+D · Post by **T+D** » Sat, 06 Oct 2007 5:41 pm

I've been told to look at the new HSBC Premier global account - havent arrived yet but the claim is to do everything you are looking for - not sure if anyone has had any experience with this?

T+D · Post by **T+D** » Sat, 06 Oct 2007 5:57 pm

Sorry everyone - havent been keeping up to date with the forum and just noticed a lot of comments / dialogue about hsbc on a later query so scratch my suggestion it looks like pot luck!

Rich D · Post by **Rich D** » Mon, 08 Oct 2007 1:57 pm

I opened an account with HSBC Offshore thinking (wrongly) that it would make life easy to transfer money to an account held with the local HSBC here. I shut the local account down a few months after arriving in Singapore not having known beforehand about the dearth of ATM machines and absence of a NETS card. However I lazily kept the offshore account until the greedy buggers decided to impose a 20 quid a month "relationship fee" unless I have over 50,000 GBP (that's about 10 million USD these days ain't it?

) with them. Some relationship eh?

After looking around I went to LloydsTSB IOM but only because I have a sterling mortgage with LLoydsTSB at their Hong Kong operation and I can easily make payments from one to t'other on the net.

As SMS says, find a bank with the attributes you mention and you'll be killed in the stampeded to sign up.

Superglide · Post by **Superglide** » Mon, 08 Oct 2007 2:00 pm

Rich D wrote:I opened an account with HSBC Offshore thinking (wrongly) that it would make life easy to transfer money to an account held with the local HSBC here.

Same here, I thought my Dutch ABN AMRO would provide the same service and be connected with ABN AMRO Singapore.

No way, they all seem to operate on a purely local level.

ksl · Post by **ksl** » Thu, 18 Oct 2007 3:20 am

When I freaked out at the charges in Halifax, this time around, customer service agreed, Halifax was robbing people to put it bluntly, they had charged me 1.50 pounds for every visa debit card purchase in Singapore retail shops....

Even the counter clerk said do we do that, i didn't know, turned and asked another cashier, oh yes, its in the fine print, if you can find it, we don't normally send those details out unless asked, but it used to be free and still is if used in UK! ( A little below the belt for me)

Customer service recommended POSB because they don't charge for using debit cards......To transfer money, I wouldn't even dream of it, I use my Danish bank cost was 7 quid for a transfer, which I believe to be very good, and that means alot coming from me. Halifax charged me 50 for a transfer 7 years ago for roughly the same amount!

I do intend to drop UK banks altogether and would never in this life time recommend one for investment, when there are others around!

Everything is just sooo bad and corrupt, and now Northern Rock have problems, who do you think they are going to rob and you thought customer service was bad in Singapore

!

Anyway justice will prevail in the end! Like when i pick up my ToTo winnings next week

HunBunny80 · Post by **HunBunny80** » Wed, 24 Oct 2007 12:06 am

My other half opened a Citibank account before leaving UK for Singapore. It is brilliant. We can switch easily from GBP to SGD (with some charges of course) at good exchange rates. They also provide us with a very good account manager.

We shopped around for a bit before settling with them. It seems like most banks are more like "franchised". :p

durain · Post by **durain** » Thu, 06 Dec 2007 7:24 pm

have a look at the following. their fees are much lower and the exchange rate very good. be very careful about big banks charges and fees, and sometimes their "load" on the forex which they dont tell you.

http://www.afex-uk.com
http://www.ukforex.com
http://www.moneycorp.com

give either one or all of them a ring. they are very helpful.

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UK international bank account

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