Banking fees with BOI

Drotciv

Hello,

My partner and I are both with Bank of Ireland for a current account and a savings account per person.

We did not really check into our fees up until now (we have been with BOI for over 3 years).

After planning holidays and other expenses in different currencies we found ourselves with more than 20€ of fees, for exchange fees regarding € to CAD.

After reviewing this we noticed here and there fees for everything we bought online "abroad" (i.e Amazon, airlines, etc.)

Now I know that these should be charged by the bank, but the latest expenses had us rethink the bank we choose.

Moreover when trying to find a statement of these fees, they are not in the banking statements labeled "Fee Statement". I also tried every other category to be sure, but they don't appear, so I cannot have a good idea of how much this cost me over the past three years without going over all my transactions (and I genuinely don't want to do that).

I also know that I could leave 3k€ at all time on my current account to reduce the day to day fees, but that would not be a solution as it costs around 10€/quarter that I am willing to pay. What I am not agreeing with that much is the 5 to 15€ transaction fees that are "hidden" in the statements.

My questions are:
- is there a way to get the right statement filtering all the fees paid to BOI? (all of them)
- is there any other bank that could have significantly lower fees without much risk/loss of comfort?

At this rate we would be ready to switch the bank if it means we won't have to spend 100€+ on fees yearly.

Thank you for reading.

PS: If you need more details I'd be happy to oblige.

scamalert

join the club, BOI became terrible in last 5 years, i often get hit with 15 to 20 quid, recently almost got ripped off because did paypal transfer and though nothing of it until got hit with message a week later stating transfer is due and because there wasnt enough funds to cover im looking at 12e smth fee, lucky managed to go into bank same day and deposit, as done it hundreds times before but it always would go trough instantly so, didnt think much until they basically held me at ransom on the day due, which simply could been avoided by sending message days in advance.

that said you should be able to see fees for each transaction on your statements, since they serve it as paper statement online dont believe theres way to filter out fees over the years without doing so manually.

check out revolut card for using as secondary card specially if converting currency often, not quite sure what other bank to recommend thou, for current account and savings.

Delta2113

https://www.ebs.ie/daily-banking/ebs-moneymanager-account-and-debit-card - FREE Current Account!

https://www.revolut.com - Top this up using your EBS Debit card!

Break FREE from BOI Current Accounts.

srsly78

Use Revolut card when abroad, not your Irish one.

Using any Irish card abroad will incur charges for foreign exchange.

Bob24

If the only issue you have is fees for foreign currency card payments, an easy option is a Curve card: https://www.curve.app/en/

They will give you a physical debit card which lets you transparently pay in foreign currencies with no fee and have the corresponding euro amount charged to your BOI card. You don’t need to maintain/top-up a separate account as with Revolut, transactions just get immediately forwarded to your BOI card as you use the Curve card, but as euro payments meaning there is no fee.

Only restriction is that it is limited to 500 GBP per month, above that Cure are also charging fees (but still cheaper than what BOI would charge).