Multicurrency bank account spreads - ANZ?

[jago25]

I guess this is a kind of alternative platform in a way?

This could be a bit of a novice question. Have you any experience of multicurrency accounts in your country?

A couple of weeks ago I saw the opportunity for AUD against NZD and decided to change savings into AUD for that spike - I didn't want to put large funds on a broker and felt I didn't have time for that either. I got the timing perfect but when it came to change back to NZD the rate was so low I actually made a loss. NAB were actually offering less AUD than for NZD - something like 0.98 when in forex the rate was 1.08!

What are your experiences with this kind of thing?
It makes sense to hold some cash rather than using brokers. If an account is multicurrency you can be quick to react to these things. But how do I avoid getting screwed like this again?

Have you used ANZ for this? Any other banks?

[skoda2008]

All banks in Australia have ludicrous retail spreads. Using a third party, whether it be a broker or currency transfer service is going to be the only way to go I'm afraid.

I had an issue with ANZ in the past when I was transferring money to an AUD account in the US. I made it very clear that I did not want the money converted to $US as it was an AUD held in the US. Of course they didn't listen and I got reamed with banks exchange rate. It was about a $500 difference compared to what I would have got through the US broker, so I fought to get them to give me the same rate as the broker would have provided. Took about 6 weeks and threathening to go to the Fincancial Services Onbudsman, but as soon as I threatened the FSO they were on the phone asking where to deposit the refund, after trying to avoid my calls for weeks.

[jago25]

Thanks for the warning. That's a shame. I don't like the credit rating of banks in the UK so it seems I would have to travel to some other country to do this.

I don't feel comfortable having savings on a broker. But sometimes I see a very good opportunity in bigger timescales that require moving a lot of funds on that idea.

I have used Currencyfair and KlickEx before but:

1) I am not so sure of security of client funds (any advice?)
2) Sending funds outside the bank like this regularly to me just seems like risk
3) Probably looks a bit like MoneyLaundering; liable to get caught up in all that rubbish
4) More complicated for accounting

I think the best I can do is have separate accounts for each currency and then using one of these currency transfer services for transfers between accounts. The problem is that I am finding account maintenance fees for each currency and maybe setting up a new account for each opportunity would be too slow.

Are there any countries out there with banks that aren't bust and offer fair spreads? The answer might be a no it seems. All the kiwi banks seems to be rubbish too including kiwibank, BNZ & ANZ BZ.

edit:

- Were you able to transfer funds to Klickex or CurrencyFair electronically with ANZ or do you have to send a message to a customer service advisor at risk of misunderstandings?

- Do you know any banks with good credit ratings in central america?

[skoda2008]

In my case I had to visit the branch to do the transfer with ANZ, as it exceeded the internet banking limit for an international transfer. It was the bank officer that (they later admitted) stuffed up the transfer.

With the currency transfer services you can just use BPay (in Australia) to put money into their local bank account - so no fees or limit (or if there is a limit it is quite high).

HSBC have multicurrency accounts, but I don't know what the exchange rates are like (might be a bit better being based in Asia?)