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Online Share Trading

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Overseas Investment

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Irish
New Contributor
I would like to be able to invest overseas, keep the forex in that particular country & not have to remit it back to SA in Rands. Other than transferring my yearly allowance to a UK bank account - how do I go about keeping my investment overseas.
5 REPLIES 5
Cedric_1
Contributor
You can open a Webtrader account with Standard bank. This operates with offshore funds. You can transfer funds direct from your SA bank account into the Webtrader account but just make sure that your account in the UK is registered as the account into which any subsequent withdrawals are paid. Alternatively transfer your funds to the UK account and fund the Webtrader account direct from there.
Not applicable
Stay away from any product offered by Standard Bank, or any other local bank, for that matter. A surefire way to lose money hand over fist, because the fee structure will kill you. The only bank that has a viable product is Barclays, where you deal directly with the offshore bank. Now, since you have no plans to repatriate the money, great (else I would advise you not to bother with offshore funds). The question now is where you actually plan to invest, so that you have the right currency to start with. Else you lose money changing from ZAR to your bank currency, and again changing from that currency to the one you want to invest in. Assuming US$, the 3rd question is active or passive portfolios. If you are actively trading, you will need an account with something like Ameritrade in the US (don't know if the UK has an equivalent). If you want unit trusts, you will need to start with some fairly sizable positions, since UK funds don't operate with anything else than 10k pounds, from what I recall. Even then, 10k buys you the bottom end of the barrel, as the top performers only work with big numbers. Best is to open a brokerage account somewhere and do it the Buffet way (pick one or 2 good quality blue chips) or the ETF way - which I am sure you will find with a google search.
partridge
Super Contributor
The sheep is wandering a bit I fear - firstly suggest you make sure that you are feeling quite well as to transfer money into a UK bank account indicates a fair degree of confusion per se. There are a number of asset managers who will accept smaller amounts than GBP10k. But costs will be higher buying direct. Start with an objective- what do I want to achieve over what period and what sort of ( currency???) return am I looking for. And there is lots more - most of which you can research online - do not buy a packaged deal. These only make salespeople and asset managers/product providers rich. If you are an expat be careful.
geordie1
Super Contributor
open up a share trading account in the country of your choice uk?do research on costs as already indicated.I use currenyfair to do some of my forex transfers-they seem to be pretty competitive but there are other forex brokers around that you may want to consider-with technology the way it is its not difficult to achieve what you want.interest rates on deposits in uk are very low and not really worth the effort-most savers in uk have accepted this gradual errosion of their cash savings as they had no real choice but on the other hand their currency compared to the rand has been strong
Blik
Super Contributor
Am not sure if this is any help - but I opened up an allan gray offshore account, and transferred my cash into their Orbis fund (waiting for hoots of derision)....lol. All in dollars, and since less than a mill, no SARS issues at all. Took a few days in total.