[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.

 

[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.

 

[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,

 

[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.

 

[RonJeremy]

@Vega: Sounds like you have not lived in UK, I envy you!
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.