Hi

We are currently US residents and have a fair amount of money want to save in £ and gain as much interest on as possible over the next year, instant access or locked in for up to a year.

Does anyone have any advice on which banks will allow you to open an account in £'s using a US address?

Also if anyone has recently looked in to this and found some good rates it would be great to know who with and which account.

So far I am finding accounts offering a miserable 0.10% interest or those such as Lloyds "International" telling me that they can't open a new account for us with our address being in the US or even upgrade the account we do have with them to pay a better rate - again because we have a US address?!

Any advice you can offer would be much appreciated!

Oh and for anyone about to move to the US make sure you open all the accounts you can/need and get your money in to those paying the highest interest before you give up your UK residence status!

You mention LTSB International. I have pound sterling accounts with them in the Isle of Man. They are specifically set up to cater to customers in the USA, as are other IoM banks (Nationwide is another, you can easily find a list of the banks that operate offshore in the IoM.)

Until a few years ago, you could get a decent interest rate there, too. Now it is not so good. I have a savings account with LTSB International that pays 2.4%, I got a letter from them a few weeks ago to say the interest will be going down to some much lower rate in May, so back to the drawing board.

So, getting a sterling account with a US address; no problem. Getting decent return? Doesn't seem to be a good time for that right now.

If you are confused about why having a US address precludes you opening an account it is mostly down to FACTA. Basically most overseas banks just couldn't be bothered with the complex reporting requirements so would rather not offer them to US residents.

With savings rates where they are it hardly seems worth it from the consumer point of view either.

It seems that currently all the banks that offer a fairly decent interest rate have a bonus rate for one year and then they drop to 1.5% or less after that.

Rates in the US will be shit, regardless. Most will be able to do a sterling account if you want, but it might cost more than it'll gain.

The interest rates are shite, invest in gold albeit for an improved ROI book a trip to Dubai and purchase the gold from there, it's tax free so you will save £££'s.

Again, as far as I know, this is NOT the case in the Isle of Man. They have specialised in complying with US requirements for many years. Admittedly, my accounts there have been in place since before FATCA, so my information may be outdated. Does anyone have recent information that suggests that IoM offshore banks no longer welcome US persons as customers?

Also, I just reread the OP's original post.. the OP mentions Lloyds International, which may be a different entity from LTSB International in the IoM. According to Wikipedia, there is a Lloyds Bank International based in Spain (formerly Halifax) and they may well not accept US customers..

Interestingly, the Lloyds IOM website refers specifically to personal banking for residents. It may well be that they have stopped opening personal accounts for non-residents in general. I'm not sure that is anything to do with FATCA as I had an account with them while resident, and recall they closed their local branch making it a right pain so I moved that account elsewhere. If they've moved out of the personal account arena (for other than residents) it may well simply be to not having enough business to warrant the overheads.

As far as I am aware the general IOM bank population still welcomes accounts from overseas - it is part of their core business. And as for meeting reporting for things like FATCA, the IOM banks are generally very adaptive to such things.

One sentence on the LTSB International website; "Accounts opened in Gibraltar or Isle of Man depending on country of residence and account currency" I know when I first contacted them, in 2007, they told me that IoM was the branch that dealt with US clients..

Thank you for all your replies on this.

Agreed rates are generally bad at the moment but we will need this money in about a years’ time to buy property with so until then we just need to do the best we can with it and as Michael has said make the most of the one year bonus rates out there… Gold sadly therefore isn't an option for us either

Robin – We also have an account with LTSB International that was a Halifax account and transferred over to them last year (we have been told this isn't the problem though it is simply that we live in the USA). Yesterday morning they told me (and I called twice to check!) that firstly we couldn't change the account we had to make the most of the 1.31% rate they are currently offering (low I know but better than the 0.1% it is currently at) and secondly we couldn't open new regular saver account which is offering 3% for the first year if you don’t withdraw (max £2500 deposit per month).

For both options they advised the reason we couldn't do this was because we lived in the USA. I didn't specifically ask about IoM accounts though, I assumed if there was something they could offer they would have transferred me to that department but I will try again with them tomorrow to see what they say. I’d be really interested though if you have success in changing your account over to a higher rate once the current rate expires.

Has anyone recently had success in opening a new account with a USA address with any of the UK/International companies as it seems with the change in the requirements as sir_eccles mentions that it is becoming increasingly more difficult?

Sorry the last three posts prior to mine hadn't come up when I was writing my reply. It does seem like the IoM is a completely different entity for LTSB International, although I do find it amazing that their International department wouldn't suggest you contact there after telling you they can't help.

I will try IoM Lloyds and other banks in the IOM tomorrow as they seem to be the strongest lead at the moment as to who might deal with those of us with US addresses!

Out of interest our account which was Halifax definitely transferred to Lloyds TSB International is covered by the Jersey Banking Depositor Compensation Scheme - I just triple checked all the paperwork on that and to make sure our money was in fact covered and not in Spain!

Count me very unconvinced of these offshore deposit compensation schemes. This one's capped as £100 million and has no pre-funding:

http://www.gov.je/Industry/Finance/D.../Overview.aspx

They are very problematic. IoM scheme is rickety too, it is poorly funded. However, if you have an account at the IoM division of a major bank like Nationwide or LTSB, in practice it is reasonable to suppose that your deposit would in effect be guaranteed by the parent institution, so long as that parent institution was sound.

Agreed - what with that, the fact we can't open UK accounts and the rubbish interest rates...keeping it under the mattress is starting to sound like the best option!

Seriously though I will look in to some of the major banking groups with IOM branches and will let you know how I get on!

Thanks again!

I hear Cyprus banks offer good consumer banking. Not