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In Italy there's also the problem that most banks don't allow you to receive wire transfers from outside the SEPA area. I had a hard time finding a bank that wo
by oAlbe 7y ago
In Italy there's also the problem that most banks don't allow you to receive wire transfers from outside the SEPA area. I had a hard time finding a bank that would allow me to receive transfers from the US. Some of them were actually baffled when I called for information at the idea of someone wanting to receive money from oversea.
And let's not even get into keeping an account in another currency. My bank apparently never had to do anything of the sorts, and after digging for information they told me it would cost about 400€ per year just keep the account open.
- riffraff 7y agoFWIW, fineco will let you have foreign currency accounts, for free, and with minimal conversion fees, it's pretty convenient.
- oAlbe 7y agoThat's actually very useful to know, thank you for the information!
- smabie 7y agoDo Italians not invest in US securities at all? Seems kind of strange...
- oAlbe 7y agoI've yet to figure that out. Personally, I'd love to be able to easily invest in a vanguard fund, or even just have the ability to put money every month on index funds, but so far from what I've seen doesn't seem to be possible.
- rocho 7y agoYou can easily buy everything you want from Interactive Brokers. You can deposit EUR and do the transactions in other currencies. The interface is old and complicated, but very powerful. You will have to do the taxes yourself though.
- jaclaz 7y agoWell, you don't strictly need an account in dollars to invest in US securities (but you are more exposed to exchange risks) while it is handy for other kinds of investments in US dollars. As riffraff said, Fineco is one of the very few banks (maybe the only one) that gives the possibility to have foreign currency accounts (linked to a "main" Euro account) at a "reasonable" cost, which is a good thing to have if you deal a lot with the US (both with receiving US dollars and spending in US dollars), but that is not needed for "normal" activities. The "conto in divisa estera" (that quite a few banks have) is basically aimed to business entities (like firms doing import/export) and is usually rather expensive, or - to be more accurate - has very high fixed costs. The alternative in the case of someone receiving US dollars may be some form of accounts with credit/debit cards issuers, but - again generally speaking - they - besides offering less possibilities (and not being "properly" a bank) tend to have low fixed costs but higher commissions/fees on single operations.
- rocho 7y agoI do. I have an account with Interactive Brokers and I can easily deposit EUR. I can buy US stocks and options in USD and IB takes care of all the details (internally, it shows up as a short USD position). Investing from the banks themselves it's also possible but it involves higher fees. Using IB has the disadvantage that I have to do the taxes myself.