Setting up a savings/trading accounts denominated in euro's?

[daedalus]

With the depreciating dollar I see no benefit to hold assets in dollars anymore. Hell we've lost 10% of our worth this year and frankly, I'd rather keep that 10% for myself. Just about every major corporation and some countries are already abandoning it completely. I would like to put my savings into an account that is denominated in euro's to protect my assets valuation.

Are there banks that can do this or do I have to put my money outside of the US in offshore accounts to accomplish this?

Also - does any one know if I can set up my Oanda Forex trading accounts to be "paid" in EUR rather than USD? I know it is an option when you create your account, i'm just wondering if there are taxation problems with this or anything.

Thanks for your help gents!

[Patch]

daedalus
Great post. As for me, I believe every time the price of a barrow of oil goes up the Yank Buck goes down. The USD is in big trouble and it is only a matter of short time, before the dollar gets dumped. You are asking the right questions.
Patch the Pirate

[michal.kreslik]

I guess the United States as a whole should switch to EUR Sooner or later, we will all have to switch to CNY, so what's the point anyway

Well seriously, I think the Fed actually welcomes the current US dollar slump. It will help to straighten the huge US trade deficit by making the US exports cheap and thus more competitive abroad. So Fed will not help people who don't want their US dollars to depreciate. Fed also has to cope with the US subprime lending crisis, so they can't tighten the interest rates policy right now.

The whole process of US dollar spanking will likely accelerate as even the United States citizens might not like the idea of their USD-denominated assets being devaluated so much against the foreign currencies. I think the US banks are now facing increased demand for foreign-currency denominated accounts.

Here in Europe it's a commonplace practice among banks to offer the customer various options on what currency he wants to have his assets denominated in. It's actually common if you open an account here in the European Union to have like 8 sub-accounts formed automatically that are denominated in various foreign currencies and you can easily add more if you wish. You are then free to make deposits / withdraw / use any of these subaccounts. I've experienced the US banking system first hand, so I fear the US banks are too backwards to do this.

So the best option for those in the US who want to deposit their assets into anything else than the USD will probably be to pick some non-US based bank's branch in the US.

Michal

[Patch]

Hi Michal

I am concerned that the USD will free fallby the end of this year. I wonder if George Soros is shorting the green back now and to what degree.

Personally I am disgusted that the banks and mortgage brokers didn't give a rip about their mortgage customers and put them into garbage home lones they had no business getting into, The bankers and mortgage brokers have taken their profits and run. To top it off, now the US government will likely bail the crooks out on top of everything. These people should be going to jail. jb

[mrSmoothy]

Hi Patch, everbank.com offers bank/trading/CD accounts in different currencies.. i've been meaning to open one for a while. Cheers.

[whittakerj]

I have my online savings accounts at hsbcdirect ingdirect and emigrantdirect. I'm not sure if you can change your money into a different currency but they are big banks I wouldn't be surprised. I was reading in a book awhile ago about opening a Swiss account because they allowed this capability. They also do not send 1099's....But I really love getting those every year so I would never do it because of that.

- The Swiss Credit Bank in Zurich
- The Union Bank of Switzerland
- The Bank Leu (AG) in Zurich
- The Swiss Bank Corporation in Basel
- The Swiss Volksbank in Berne

[fcg0lfer]

I have also been considering changing the base currency of my trading account to Euro's. I know Interactive Brokers will let you change your accounts base currency to whatever you like:
IB-Base Currency