Banking Advice

Par1

Guys

Just wondering if it is better to have 2 bank accounts or 1. We work in the republic and the north (service calls to department stores). We are possible going to do some work for a UK stores in the next few weeks.

Im wondering is it possible to get payments made to one account. Will a UK company be able to transfer into an Irish account or vice versa? or do i need a UK account. Should i start banking with a bank that has branches in both UK and Ireland or does it matter (im thinking RBS, ulster bank?)? Where should i open account should i register the company in UK or stay in Republic? What is the best way to operate this?

Any advice greatly appreciated

Cheers

JTMan

Sounds like you need a GBP account rather than a UK bank account?

BoI, AIB, Ulster Bank, KBC, Nationwide UK (Ireland), Investec and PTSB offer GBP bank accounts.

Is the GBP account to make payments as well as receive payments?

There will be no issue with a UK company paying into an Irish bank account.

Par1

JTMan wrote: »

Sounds like you need a GBP account rather than a UK bank account?

BoI, AIB, Ulster Bank, KBC, Nationwide UK (Ireland), Investec and PTSB offer GBP bank accounts.

Is the GBP account to make payments as well as receive payments?

There will be no issue with a UK company paying into an Irish bank account.

Thanks JTMan

The account would just be for receiving payment for works completed.

The UK company that we service (department stores) for did mention that they would rather pay into a UK account that's why im thinking of opening a UK account. I'm not sure if the Irish branches would then pay into a UK account so i probable will need 2 accounts, 1 for the UK works and 1 for the Irish works. It seems a bit silly to have 2, would the UK department store realise they are paying into an account outside of the UK and also the same question for Irish department store? I assume they would by codes etc.??

JTMan

Par1 wrote: »

Thanks JTMan

The account would just be for receiving payment for works completed.

The UK company that we service (department stores) for did mention that they would rather pay into a UK account that's why im thinking of opening a UK account. I'm not sure if the Irish branches would then pay into a UK account so i probable will need 2 accounts, 1 for the UK works and 1 for the Irish works. It seems a bit silly to have 2, would the UK department store realise they are paying into an account outside of the UK and also the same question for Irish department store? I assume they would by codes etc.??

It makes no difference to the UK stores if the GBP account is in Ireland or the GBP account is in the UK.

All you need to do is to give them the IBAN and BIC.

Par1

JTMan wrote: »

It makes no difference to the UK stores if the GBP account is in Ireland or the GBP account is in the UK.

All you need to do is to give them the IBAN and BIC.

Cheers JTMan...just out of curiosity....are IBAN and BIC numbers/codes unique to certain banks i.e would ulster bank have same codes for Ireland and Uk or would an accounts dept be able to tell that the IBAN/BIC are from another country.
I know sort codes are different from branch to branch and also bank to bank

Finally what would be the best bank to join that has branches in UK NI and Republic....cheers

BazzaDP

The IBAN has the country code as the first two letters. So all Irish IBANs start with IE and all British ones with GB.

To be honest most cross border banks run them as completely separate entities so it makes no real difference having both accounts with same bank.

Using the BIC and IBAN it should be possibly to pay into one account (no matter what the currency) so you might not need two. However they are used less in UK as they are not fully part of SEPA, so some companies might only be set up to handle account and sort code so might be handy to have a UK account for short term at least. An Irish based GBP account probably wouldn't be as useful for this reason alone.

You also need to decide what currency you want your money kept in. Let's say you decided to use just your Irish based EUR account. If you get paid regularly in GBP into that account then you'll most likely lose a bit of that each time in conversion fees (either directly with a fee or indirectly with the exchange rate). If you need to withdraw GBP (e.g. to buy lunch while in the north) you'll get hit again on the other way. So, while you're working in both currencies, it might again make sense to keep them separate short term and sync up to your main currency every so often.

Hope that helps.