GBP FX \ UK Investment For Non Resident

[TJEH]

I am an Australian resident (domiciled in Australia) with a fair sum of £GBP sitting in a UK bank account. In a "genius" decision, I had effectively been trying to time FX, as I had been trickling the funds back to my $AUD account. Then Brexit, GBP>AUD plumetted and has continued to slide.

I don't need the funds to be available in $AUD in the near future, but I am looking at options to get a better return than the ~0.5% interest offerings from the banks.

As an Australian Resident I'm not sure what options are open to me for investing the funds as they stand.

What options I have looked at state that you must be a UK resident for tax purposes (e.g. when opening a UK trading account). For what it's worth, my wife holds a UK passport, but is still an Australian Resident, so I don't know if that helps.

Thoughts?

[daverobev]

Do you have an Aus. brokerage account? You may or may not be able to buy a FTSE 100 or FTSE 250 ETF either in GBP or USD or even AUD. For anything other than GBP, it doesn't matter what currency you *buy* in, just what the underlying thing *owns*. Mind, the FTSE has gone up because the pound is down.

If you don't have a brokerage account, you can open one with Interactive Brokers; they will take pretty much any currency and can buy on most exchanges (at least, I know they work in the UK, US, Canada...). The only downside with IB is that you need a fairly large chunk of change with them to avoid fees. Their forex is fantastic; it basically costs me $2.50 to change any amount of currency, at spot rates.

[DrF]

How long until you need the money? If a long long time, you could buy some GBP futures (they are so low right now because of the Brexit). Eventually, they will rise. How long will it take? Who knows.

[TJEH]

daverobev, yes, I've got an account with a couple of online brokers in Australia (etrade and cmc). I must admit I didn't think about the possibility of being able to use a GBP account with them. I'll check it out, and if not possible then I'll check with IB. Thanks for this suggestion, it seems like a good possibility for what I want to achieve. I'm currently buying VEU (amongst others) with my AUD brokerage account, so I'd look to do something similar with a GBP account.

[TJEH]

How long until you need the money? If a long long time, you could buy some GBP futures (they are so low right now because of the Brexit). Eventually, they will rise. How long will it take? Who knows.

DrF, I have no real need for the money any time soon (5-10 years would be no problem). I have to admit I don't know anything about futures, so I'd have to educate myself there. Thanks for the suggestion, I'll check it out.

[TJEH]

I tried both etrade and cmc, which could not help, but as daverobev suggested, I also tried IB. It seems as though it is possible to open an account with them, telling them I want to fund it with GBP. I then transfer money from my existing GBP account to my IB account  (GBP > GBP means no currency conversion). I then can trade directly on the UK market, buying with GBP. If I purchase on another market, then my funds would be converted to the applicable currency....which I don't intend doing. If at any stage I want to sell my holdings, once the funds are redeemed to my IB account, I can then transfer them to my external GBP account. The long term plan would be to redeem the funds back to AUD.......but I can wait many years for that. So, this looks like a possible solution for me, thanks!