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EuroEuroTime to think about moving your deposits into a safer currency!

Whether we like it or not more and more people are becoming a little bit scared about the Euro, Irish banks and the security of their deposits. Like it or not, this means for some actually considering moving their money into a foreign currency account.

Most banks here can probably offer you a facility to open such an account but there are some minimum requirements.

AIB offers “call and fixed-term” deposit accounts in various currencies with no threshold for call deposit accounts and a minimum of €10,000 for fixed-term accounts.

BOI also offers non-euro accounts in over 30 major currencies from overnight deposit up to a five year term. Again there are certain minimum requirements. Demand accounts need a minimum opening balance of €2,500 while fixed term accounts need €6,500.

Ulster Bank offers either current or deposit facilities in a foreign currency with the minimum opening balance for deposits at €5,000 and no minimum requirement for current accounts.

National Irish Bank also offers such facilities with its minimum deposit requirement set at €15,000.

However, even if some people are worried about the Euro, even more are seriously concerned about Irish banks security. In other words, you may have your money now in a different non-euro denomination but it’s still housed in the same Irish bank.

Any non-resident can open up a deposit account in another EU state subject to certain criteria. The first is that the foreign institution accepts your money and this all boils down primarily to money-laundering and identification checks.

The only downside to the whole thing is that fees will be higher due to foreign exchange charges.

There is one thing to bear in mind though if you are contemplating either an Irish bank foreign account or opening up a deposit account somewhere else in the EU. Sometimes the grass is greener at home because in essence so called “safe havens” can turn out to be another currency risk in the end.

Experts say that probably the best option for anyone is to minimise the risk by reducing their exposure to any one single bank and spreading it over a number of institutions and foreign owned banks operating in Ireland.

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