Multi-currency accounts?

[RonJeremy]

Does anyone have experience with multi-currency bank-accounts here in Cyprus?
It seems to be very difficult to get any solid information about them, so I would love to hear from someone who actually uses them!

Sometimes I want Swedish cash, so what I do then is I use currencyfair.com to exchange my money into Swedish Krones (CurrencyFair does this so ridiculously cheaper than any bank), but the problem with CF is that you then need a bank-account to send it to,
so I send it to my dads swedish bank and he can withdraw it for me, which is a mess.

But technically if Cyprus has multi-currency accounts (even for Swedish apparently) I could just send the money to a Cypriot account and withdraw it here!?

The only thing I don't understand is; how would I withdraw this money? Do the Cypriot banks have lots of Swedish bills in their offices that I can just take out for no charge? (common sense tells me that the ATM's obviously don't hold all these multi-currencies)

Also this seems too good to be true for traveling, say I wanted to go to USA for 3 months I could convert my money into dollars on CF, transfer into a Cypriot dollar-account, withdraw here = save ridiculous money.

[Vegaanders]

A multi-currency account does not mean that you can get the different currency´s involved in banknotes in the bank.

I have a multi currency account in germany and it only means that if I get a payment that is not Euro it will stay as this foreign currency until I want to change it to Euro.
Ofc you can also decide to change your euro to another currency if that is better, but as said only on the acount, not in physical money. This can be ok if the exchagereate change a lot and you can make some money on this.

If I however want to take out the money in the currency it arrived in you have to order the currency in the bank if they dont have it and I am sure they will charge you for the transaction because handling notes is expensive also for the bank.

It would be impossible for the banks to have this service for free and keep all currencies in stock.

And as a Swede I really doubt that you can get a multi-currency account that has SEK as one currency. Its to small for that

[RonJeremy]

Well actually internet searches seems to indicate that SEK is common for multi-currency, for example this post Can I open Cyprus offshore bank account multi currency? suggests that all big Cypriot banks accepts it.

But you're probably right that the purpose of multi-currency is not for withdraw, just for using digitally (I assume you would at least be able to use it to buy things in USD using the debitcard?)

Theoretically I would think that if I wanted to take a US vacation I could have a USD multi-currency account in some country which I send my dollars to, and then in america use that debitcard in their atm,
however "that country" would probably not be Cyprus, as cypriot banks seems to charge through the roof for everything, including using ATM abroad.

[Vegaanders]

I think almost all kind of cards charge for using ATM, but not all. In Germany its not so easy to get a real credit card so I have got an english prepaid one where I can have up to 3000 euro and easy transfer more from my normal bank account if I need more. And to take out money abroad cost 2 euro whatever amount you take out

[RonJeremy]

Hmm I would love to know more, I've looked up British pre-paid currency cards but they all want you to top them up in £ so that they can make huge money on the exchange rate as they convert it to Euro.

Are you saying you have a card which you can bank-transfer euro's from you EU bank straight into euro's on the pre-paid card? if so that sounds amazing! please tell me which one,

[Vegaanders]

Hi!
I sent you a PM as I dont want to advertise

[Monty]

Hi All
I use UK City bank, i opened a Dollar account no charge with Free debit card for useing abroad,
My Pay goes into the dollar account I then use a currency exchange sevice not the banks service.They then change it into Pounds, then transfer as much or as little as i want to my normal Bank, simple. They also do euro accounts as well.

[RonJeremy]

Ah thanks Monty for the information, so Multi-Currency accounts could be really useful if you get a separate debit-card to go with them, as that means I could travel to US and pay straight in dollars!

The challenge would just be to have a debit-card that doesn't charge you a lot for using it abroad,
my Hellenic Bank debit-card charges me 3.3% for withdrawing abroad EVEN if there's no currency exchange,
Theoretically since it does say "withdraw" that might mean that the cost of 3.3% is ONLY for atm use but you can use it for services with ZERO "spending penalty", but Hellenic is intentionally vague about it so I'm not sure I trust that.

[Vegaanders]

Banks are not allowed to do what they want in many cases and bank card fees is one of them. Payment of services with a bank card should be without fees.

[RonJeremy]

@Vega: Sounds like you have not lived in UK, I envy you! :P
My UK Natwest Debit card charges a £1.5 "spending penalty" when I use it abroad (for example in a restaurant),
but since no Cypriot bank mentions such even in their most deepest PDF files on charges, I guess maybe they don't do that in Cyprus.

But yeah I've been looking into different Cyprus banks now and Laiki seems really good, they can set up multi-currency with both Swedish and US currency and give me a debitcard for each, meaning I can spend that in those countries for free (again, assuming no "spending penalty while abroad") and the occational withdraw money at 3.33%,
Or if I'm really lucky I might even be able to withdraw abroad in those currencies for FREE, as a few of Laiki's card offers that, one of which is "What up 18+", I'm not entirely sure if I can get one of those for multi-currency accounts, and I'm a bit unsure what happens after I turn 26 (the website says the card is suited for those aged 18-26).

Also (unrelated to this topic) according to their charges pdf files they would be significantly cheaper for my usual cyprus activities, as with my current hellenic bank I pay ridicolous banking fee's all the time, those fees are there in Laiki but at much more sane levels.