Citibank US Dollar Current Account Review

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3 stars
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jfknight's Review of Citibank US Dollar Current Account

17th Nov 2007

Overall Rating

3 stars
  • Customer Service
    2.5 stars
  • Ease of use
    3.5 stars
Good Points

As long as you keep US$ equivalent of £2000 as a balance, no charges.
Time to process incoming sterling cheques has recently reduced to 2 days from about 5.
Opening a savings account is recommended if you want to build up a $ sum, transfers between savings and current accounts are then instant.
Can withdraw cash in US$ from most USA ATM's.


Bad Points

Annoying, rather clunky Internet banking interface, doesn't always work well with Firefox browser either
Banking US $ cheques are treated as "foreign" even though the account is in $, and take up to 2 WEEKS to clear.
Obviously since the exchange rate varies you need to maintain sufficient margin in the account to keep the balance over £2000 sterling or you will get charged equivalent of US$20 per month "relationship fee" with no warning.
NO interest paid on current account - need to open separate savings account if you want that though its easy to transfer once set up.


General Comments

I travel to the USA at least once a year, and wanted a current account so I can get cash in $ easily. The account works well enough for this purpose, and even though many ATM's warn that you will be charged for withdrawals it's never happened yet, not sure why,

Overall it's been good, I've had few problems though it used to be very hard to pay my dollar Amex card bill - it wasn't possible over the Internet, and doing it over the phone resulted in £50 charges for paying a $75 bill for example, PLUS the fact that calling the UK from a USA hotel room cost almost as much again to complete the instruction. It's better to write a cheque for it, then it's free, but I had to do this in the States once, which meant I would have had to send the cheque from USA to Amex's UK address, for them to forward it back to New York for processing, and there wasn't time with clearing to make it by the payment due date. I believe this has changed now though and you can set up external payments simply via Internet banking though I haven't tried it out yet.

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