Well, 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

Well, 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.