Foreign/Aussie webmasters: HSBC now does real time currency quotes and transfers
 

I have a multicurrency account with HSBC in Australia. Up until today rates usually changed a maximum of a few times per day - now you can pick the exact point and rate at which you want to convert :)

https://www.hsbc.com.au/1/2/misc/get-rate-pib

I don't know if this is a worldwide thing, or just HSBC AU.

I converted some USD to AUD a few moments ago. After letting the first quote lapse and refreshing it I noticed it was going downwards (which for USD-AUD is good), so I did a couple more refreshes until it went back up again, then accepted. Made about $5 extra from that small wait.

One gotcha: the amount you specify to transfer is now in the DESTINATION currency, not the SOURCE currency. I wanted to convert $USD1250 to $AUD<whatever> but ended up getting my AUD account credited with $AUD1250. I didn't realise this had changed until after the transfer was completed.

I chucked in my US$ HSBC account a year or so ago when the US$ was going pear shaped, it cost me around US$50 per month to keep it open. The tax man started sniffing around too, always a bad sign.

I hear they are allowing more "transparency" in their banking processes too, you might just find these offshore accounts aren't so useful anymore. :2 cents:

Mine is an ONshore multicurrency account, based in Australia, with both AUD and USD subaccounts. The cost is $AUD2.50 per account per month.

I declare all USD income in its equivalent AUD amount using rates provided by the ATO, so no worries there...

Offshore accounts are much more useful when it's in a corporations name. In general we've found much fewer hasstles and headaches.

Most importantly, less central bank questions.

This is NOT an offshore account! It's a multicurrency account that lets me convert between two currencies, when I choose. Back when I was receiving cheques I would sometimes hold them for a few weeks, waiting for the exchange rates to improve. Now I can just let my (cleared) USD funds sit there until I'm ready to convert.

Being able to snag a realtime rate pushes things up a notch because you're no longer locked into the "we'll update this every few hours and add a few percent safety margin" rate.

If you want to gamble with currencies, why not set up a forex account, talk to marketsmart or whoever it was who's dicking around with that instead of porn the last year, you'll be playing the pokies for real :)

I've looked into forex myself quite seriously, but it's basically the equivalent of gambling. You have to watch it like a hawk, and I wouldn't put any money into it until you've been watching the currency markets for at least 6 months.

Some of those forex programs let you play in the real markets with pretend money, it's a good way to learn the pitfalls pretty quickly. I used to promote a forex program a while ago, just google them, you'll find some useful tools around.

Btw, why tell the ATO anything? :1orglaugh

Yeah, I have played with oanda before, but I'm not really into hardcore forex. I made a bit playing USD/JPY but it got boring watching graphs all day.

The other issue is that the "account" currency is not AUD, so any gains in USD may be wiped out once they're converted back to AUD. I guess there might be some AUD forex companies but I didn't come across any.

So my multicurrency account isn't really a gamble, it's just choosing the best time to convert. :) Sometimes I'll hedge and convert half "now" then hold the other half if I'm not sure which way things will go.