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Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Investor Alley => Topic started by: patjk on March 06, 2018, 09:01:36 PM

Title: Diversifying cash into multi-currency account - hard to find banks that do this
Post by: patjk on March 06, 2018, 09:01:36 PM: I have a set amount that every month goes into my Wealthfront and Schwab accounts. With markets being at such a high level, I've decided to hold more cash (mostly USD) and upon a correction I will increase the amount I'm putting in each month. However, with the dollar potentially getting weaker, and for general diversification, I'd like to hold my cash in multiple currencies, ideally more EUR, GBP, and HKD. I contacted Chase and they don't offer this service. Do you know any bank in the US that will allow me to open a multi-currency account? If not, how do others here deal with this issue to diversify cash?

Thanks.
Title: Re: Diversifying cash into multi-currency account - hard to find banks that do this
Post by: Paul der Krake on March 06, 2018, 10:40:09 PM: Citi has a foreign currency account in their Citigold package. It's expensive.

TransferWise offers their borderless account. There are fees to convert (obviously), but you can generally hold for free and transfer out to local bank accounts for a nominal fee of about $1.
Title: Re: Diversifying cash into multi-currency account - hard to find banks that do this
Post by: Ursus Major on March 06, 2018, 11:05:12 PM: Interactive Brokers offers Forex trading in their brokerage accounts, so you can buy and hold currencies other than your base currency.
Title: Re: Diversifying cash into multi-currency account - hard to find banks that do this
Post by: Million2000 on March 07, 2018, 07:04:43 AM: Quote from: Paul der Krake on March 06, 2018, 10:40:09 PM
Citi has a foreign currency account in their Citigold package. It's expensive.

TransferWise offers their borderless account. There are fees to convert (obviously), but you can generally hold for free and transfer out to local bank accounts for a nominal fee of about $1.

Thank you for this information, and thank you OP for bringing this topic up. I too have wanted to diversify away from the US dollar by buying foreign currencies for the past few years but have not found a good way to do that. Traveling abroad many banks offer foreign currency accounts (some even loan money in foreign currency) but the US having the world reserve currency has been insulated from this. I'll have to check out the company more obviously, but I'm thankful there are more options than there used to be.
Title: Re: Diversifying cash into multi-currency account - hard to find banks that do this
Post by: Rob_bob on March 07, 2018, 11:33:48 AM: How about buying foreign currency ETF's?

FXE Euro
FXB British Sterling
FXF Swis Franc

Or if you are bullish on the Dollar UUP.
If you are bearish on the Dollar UDN.

Need a longer list?
http://etfdb.com/etfdb-category/currency/
Title: Re: Diversifying cash into multi-currency account - hard to find banks that do this
Post by: patjk on August 03, 2018, 01:51:08 AM: Thanks for all the people who replied offering options.

Just an update on this: I've been using TransferWise Borderless Accounts and it works great for currency diversification:
https://transferwise.com/gb/borderless/
Title: Re: Diversifying cash into multi-currency account - hard to find banks that do this
Post by: theolympians on August 03, 2018, 06:42:24 PM: Why do think the dollar will "potentially" get weaker? What do you see on the horizon?
Title: Re: Diversifying cash into multi-currency account - hard to find banks that do this
Post by: talltexan on August 09, 2018, 01:18:40 PM: Trained and practicing economist here:

I was expecting the dollar to appreciate because the large increase in the Federal Budget deficit would attract capital from abroad who wish to buy our bonds.