Best bank that allows you to make a bank transfer without blocking ?

[Bigmarc]

26 minutes ago, Bratnia said:

I know near zero about bitcoin, but it strikes me that as the Pound and UK banking system moves to being non-fungible that alternatives will rise to favour. One option might be for a 'app' that maintains a bitcoin short position to the amount of bitcoins you hold, so its value remains consistent (non-volatile value) - making it the same as Pounds/cash (stable value, but earns/pays no interest). Spend 0.1 bitcoin and the app reduces your short bitcoin by 0.1 value, receive 1 bit coin and the app adds 1 bit coin worth of short bitcoin value.

There are many crypto companies working on wallets to do this and more. Pretty much an attempt to bring it forward for better adoption. I have been reading up on it for a while. 

The main problem I see is apart from us strange metal hoarding bunch the rest of society just would not be happy with self custody and pretty much need banks or contracts to feel safe. I know no one at work or through my social circle that collect gold or crypto but they all have problems with banks stopping transactions, they just view it as an inconvenience and carry on. 

Personally I think we need cash, gold, crypto and cbdc's and think they will all be working along side eachother, how? Not to sure yet but do like the research. 

 

Personally the best bank for me at the moment is revolute (not a bank yet but getting there). They have stopped transactions before but mostly takes a few minutes to get them lifted.

Edited March 6, 2023 by Bigmarc

[CANV]

I dont think the major banks are out to get us.   well not yet, the government will do that with Britcoin eventually.    

they are forced to jump through so many hoops now they have to cover their own arse.   its not just money laundering.  

they will have to cover stupid people, any hint of a selling a product that dosent perform

and not sending out 50 warnings about everything.  

to be fair personal banking in this country still isn't that bad .. its 'free' and it has a reasonable amount of competition

the only reason branches shut Is that the customers dont use them ..   have a look at USA banking if u want a nasty shock. 

[Zeuk]

9 minutes ago, CANV said:

I dont think the major banks are out to get us.   well not yet, the government will do that with Britcoin eventually.    

they are forced to jump through so many hoops now they have to cover their own arse.   its not just money laundering.  

they will have to cover stupid people, any hint of a selling a product that dosent perform

and not sending out 50 warnings about everything.  

to be fair personal banking in this country still isn't that bad .. its 'free' and it has a reasonable amount of competition

the only reason branches shut Is that the customers dont use them ..   have a look at USA banking if u want a nasty shock. 

Would agree, the extra security checks manifest as a poor customer experience but I think thats about it.  Our payment systems are way simpler than the US but that also means easier for fraud to take place and dealing with that eats into their margins.

[Roy]

1 hour ago, CANV said:

...have a look at USA banking if u want a nasty shock. 

Tell me about it!

BOA suck, I got so frustrated with them, I cut up my credit card and sent it back 😒 

 

[Bratnia]

2 hours ago, CANV said:

I dont think the major banks are out to get us.   well not yet, the government will do that with Britcoin eventually.    

they are forced to jump through so many hoops now they have to cover their own arse.   its not just money laundering.  

I suspect it will just become common bank policy to comply with the law by 'flagging everything' so anything that is fraud/laundering will at least have been flagged by the bank. Which conceptually might overload the state system - but perhaps where the state opines it could now handle such volumes and get to see all transactions everywhere, to associate to the street/road cam tracking and getting inside your head via your phone.

[Solachesis]

6 hours ago, Bratnia said:

I know near zero about bitcoin, but it strikes me that as the Pound and UK banking system moves to being non-fungible that alternatives will rise to favour. One option might be for a 'app' that maintains a bitcoin short position to the amount of bitcoins you hold, so its value remains consistent (non-volatile value) - making it the same as Pounds/cash (stable value, but earns/pays no interest). Spend 0.1 bitcoin and the app reduces your short bitcoin by 0.1 value, receive 1 bit coin and the app adds 1 bit coin worth of short bitcoin value.

That just sounds like fiat with extra steps

There are already stablecoins, tokens which are pegged to the value of currencies, and "supposedly" fully backed by reserves. These allow you to maintain a balance equivalent to fiat, but on the Blockchain and away from third party institutions. 

Eventually though, they will all likely have to comply with regulators. There was already an example where Circle, who created USDC, a token pegged to USD, froze the accounts of those who had used a money mixer to anonymise their source of funds

Cash, gold, bitcoin, imo that's all you need. They cannot be seize or freeze your bitcoin, the bank's hate what they cannot control. Avoid anything with a CEO, avoid anything which has been pre-mined with huge allocations being alloted to their owners. Avoid projects that get in bed with governments. And avoid anything with unrealistic yields. 

Have cash for your daily living, and for emergencies, have gold as your tangible asset and hedge, have bitcoin to have assets which they can never take from you. They can only make it harder for you to acquire it. Keep it in cold storage and hide away your seed phase.

6 hours ago, Bratnia said:

 

 

Edited March 7, 2023 by Solachesis
Duplicate

[Bigmarc]

1 hour ago, Solachesis said:

Have cash for your daily living, and for emergencies, have gold as your tangible asset and hedge, have bitcoin to have assets which they can never take from you. They can only make it harder for you to acquire it. Keep it in cold storage and hide away your seed phase

Great advice, unfortunately I am yet to find a wallet that I am happy with. Would like one that only shows balance on screen when you plug it in. 

[SidS]

I've never had any issues with Halifax.

There's a coin dealer I regularly buy from and the arrangement we have is that I have his bank details saved as one of my payees in my account. The first transaction was a ball ache, with security and ensuring it was all legit - that was for a hundred or so quid. The subsequent ones have been a breeze as I can transfer a few grand his way for a coin and it goes through without any issues whatsoever as he's already in my contact list.

[Solachesis]

3 hours ago, Bigmarc said:

Great advice, unfortunately I am yet to find a wallet that I am happy with. Would like one that only shows balance on screen when you plug it in. 

My old Trezor One did that, unplugging it made it disappear, was much better than the ledger which even without being plugged in remembers all your balances

[Bigmarc]

1 minute ago, Solachesis said:

My old Trezor One did that, unplugging it made it disappear, was much better than the ledger which even without being plugged in remembers all your balances

Cheers, I will have a look, more concerned about the missus seeing than being hacked.

[Bratnia]

6 hours ago, Solachesis said:

Have cash for your daily living, and for emergencies, have gold as your tangible asset and hedge, have bitcoin to have assets which they can never take from you. They can only make it harder for you to acquire it. 

But the price volatility is a killer if you're just looking at bitcoin being a stable store of value/currency. Golds volatility can be largely negated with stocks, but shifting physical gold especially across international borders is high risk, its better to liquidate, electronic transfer and repurchase at the desired destination - for which bitcoin could be used if domestic gold convertibility into domestic currency became a issue/barrier or there were restrictions on how much money was permitted to be taken out of the country (or brought into the destination country). Shorting bitcoin in order to negate its price volatility for a brief period during the time of having sold gold for bitcoin to the time you bought gold again using those bitcoin is more viable than holding longer term bitcoin + short bitcoin positions.

[flyingveepixie]

11 hours ago, CANV said:

to be fair personal banking in this country still isn't that bad .. its 'free' and it has a reasonable amount of competition

 

I concur with that. When I had my house in Italy I had an Italian bank account with Unicredit. They don't answer communications of any kind and once, when I rang up to speak to a contact I had at the London branch because I needed an apparently unsolvable problem sorted they told me that she had relocated back to Italy and the branch was closing. As far as I'm aware, the London branch is still there 15 years later and so I suspect, is the contact who simply couldn't be bothered to speak to me. If you have a non resident account they will charge you merrily for every little transaction you make (1 euro when I had the account) and also charge you for the running of the account - mine cost 15 euros a month to run and I got so sick of it I eventually just closed the damned thing and was charged 15 euros for that too.  Security is to the point of being ridiculous there too : to enter the branch you have to go through one of those single person only double revolving door type of things so only one person can enter at a time, and if you are carrying even a small bag it wont let you proceed.  And the in-branch queues and waiting times to be seen - just don't go there.    Total nightmare.

On the other hand however I had an account with Raiffeisen Bank when I lived in Germany and never had a squeak of trouble from them as well as an interest free overdraft as long as I paid it off at the end of the month, every month, which I did and had a hassle free and relatively pleasant banking experience with them.

I've never heard of Revolut or Wise incidentally.  Are they worth looking in to..?

I also don't understand the concept of the government never being able to interfere with bitcoin either - wont they just legislate to suit one day..?   Forgive my naiveity...☺️

Edited March 7, 2023 by flyingveepixie

[Solachesis]

6 minutes ago, Bratnia said:

But the price volatility is a killer if you're just looking at bitcoin being a stable store of value/currency. Golds volatility can be largely negated with stocks, but shifting physical gold especially across international borders is high risk, its better to liquidate, electronic transfer and repurchase at the desired destination - for which bitcoin could be used if domestic gold convertibility into domestic currency became a issue/barrier or there were restrictions on how much money was permitted to be taken out of the country (or brought into the destination country). Shorting bitcoin in order to negate its price volatility for a brief period during the time of having sold gold for bitcoin to the time you bought gold again using those bitcoin is more viable than holding longer term bitcoin + short bitcoin positions.

I see where you're coming from, but you wouldn't use a speculative asset as a reliable store of value. You buy it, put it away. I would never bother with a position on bitcoin, like I wouldn't bother with a gold ETF. You don't hold it, you don't own It. Part of the huge appeal is having the asset in self custody where only you can control it. Sure you could trade it on a platform, but that's for immediate profit/loss mitigation, not actually buying and holding it 

Edited March 7, 2023 by Solachesis
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[Bratnia]

1 hour ago, flyingveepixie said:

I also don't understand the concept of the government never being able to interfere with bitcoin either - wont they just legislate to suit one day..?  

I suspect they might outlaw its fungibility - make it difficult/impossible to convert to/from Pounds/whatever, or spend it via regular outlets, but suspect the idea being that as its global they can't stop/control it. Where for instance someone with bitcoins could buy your gold in exchange for bitcoins, such that you could travel abroad to where bitcoin fungibility was available and exchange those bitcoins for regular currency (or from home, buy something remotely in another country paying in bitcoin and have the item posted to your home address).

[flyingveepixie]

39 minutes ago, Bratnia said:

I suspect they might outlaw its fungibility - make it difficult/impossible to convert to/from Pounds/whatever, or spend it via regular outlets, but suspect the idea being that as its global they can't stop/control it. Where for instance someone with bitcoins could buy your gold in exchange for bitcoins, such that you could travel abroad to where bitcoin fungibility was available and exchange those bitcoins for regular currency (or from home, buy something remotely in another country paying in bitcoin and have the item posted to your home address).

Hmm, maybe...🤔  I'm a right old cynical bugger and I don't really understand bitcoin at all or how it works tbh, but my thinking is that they all acted in concert well enough through the covid farce, even down to them all reading from the same script and all repeating the same moronic phrases  like  "build back better", and  "follow the science"  and all that kind of thing, so I'm kind of sceptical about them allowing such a rogue (in their eyes) entity such as bitcoin to remain unregulated on a worldwide basis.   I might be wrong and I hope I am but the cynic in me always smells a rat where banks and governments are concerned. They're even now talking about a one world government scenario and recently had a big meeting about it with all the usual suspects in attendance.

Edited March 7, 2023 by flyingveepixie

[danieldorkins]

15 hours ago, Bratnia said:

I know near zero about bitcoin, but it strikes me that as the Pound and UK banking system moves to being non-fungible that alternatives will rise to favour. One option might be for a 'app' that maintains a bitcoin short position to the amount of bitcoins you hold, so its value remains consistent (non-volatile value) - making it the same as Pounds/cash (stable value, but earns/pays no interest). Spend 0.1 bitcoin and the app reduces your short bitcoin by 0.1 value, receive 1 bit coin and the app adds 1 bit coin worth of short bitcoin value.

Having experienced a lot of the above problems with Santander and Halifax I looked at Revolut and Chase, tried them both and stuck with Revolut, a good product, you also have the option of using a "one time card" particularly useful when dealing with an unknown supplier, recently I have looked at and joined https://www.tallymoney.com/ well worth looking at and could be of interest to many members on here!

Not knowing anything about crypto I see it often recommended as an alternative to banks and cash, could someone explain why, it seems to be extremely volatile with no tangible back up, pretty much like fiat currencies! or am I missing something?

[SidS]

I personally think crypto is speculative. At best a way to gamble money and make a profit - if you time it right. At worst it's a Ponzi scheme or tulip mania kind of thing.

[danieldorkins]

7 minutes ago, SidS said:

I personally think crypto is speculative. At best a way to gamble money and make a profit - if you time it right. At worst it's a Ponzi scheme or tulip mania kind of thing.

Exactly, and the Tulip mania was in the 1600's ! we never learn, driven by greed.

[SidS]

1 hour ago, danieldorkins said:

Exactly, and the Tulip mania was in the 1600's ! we never learn, driven by greed.

Ah but it's different this time, it's got tech and everything... 😁

😂😂😂😂😂

[bluemoon]

Things have gotten so bad that at this point I will only open a new bank account if it doesn't do KYC. What's that, no such banks exist any more? What a shame, it's cash, PMs and crypto then. Maybe some barter here and there too.

My current bank I've been with since I was 6 years old and they obviously didn't KYC me back then. It's a personal current account and I use it as sparingly as possible. The more we use our bank accounts, the more likely something will trigger the algos to kick up a stick about.

[bluemoon]

1 hour ago, SidS said:

I personally think crypto is speculative. At best a way to gamble money and make a profit - if you time it right. At worst it's a Ponzi scheme or tulip mania kind of thing.

The problem is that greedy people use it AS speculation which is not what crypto supposed to be. I'd be perfectly fine with a roughly stable 1:1 bitcoin parity with the GBP, I only care to use it as a decentralised transaction method that won't be QEd, regulated or otherwise fiddled with. The greedy people looking to get rich are what ruined it.

[SidS]

1 hour ago, bluemoon said:

The greedy people looking to get rich are what ruined it.

Don't they ruin everything?

Bankers, politicians, yuppies (or whatever they're called these days).

[Zeuk]

1 hour ago, bluemoon said:

The problem is that greedy people use it AS speculation which is not what crypto supposed to be. I'd be perfectly fine with a roughly stable 1:1 bitcoin parity with the GBP, I only care to use it as a decentralised transaction method that won't be QEd, regulated or otherwise fiddled with. The greedy people looking to get rich are what ruined it.

Couldnt agree more, ethereum is a great example of this

[flyingveepixie]

59 minutes ago, Zeuk said:

Couldnt agree more, ethereum is a great example of this

I bought £500 worth of ethereum in 2017 and sold it some years later for about £170...🙄

I had the same amount of bitcoin too and managed to sell it for £200 profit but if I'd held onto it longer I could've increased my profit dramatically. Classic huh..🙄

I've still got three Litecoins which I also bought for about £500 at the same time as I bought the other stuff but they're in a wallet on my old phone which doesn't seem to work anymore (the wallet, not the phone) and I have no idea how to re-access it as the 12 word recovery code doesn't work. I think they're only worth about £100 now.

Hard lesson but well learned and I wont be dabbling in crypto any further.

Edited March 7, 2023 by flyingveepixie

[Bratnia]

2 hours ago, bluemoon said:

The problem is that greedy people use it AS speculation which is not what crypto supposed to be. I'd be perfectly fine with a roughly stable 1:1 bitcoin parity with the GBP, I only care to use it as a decentralised transaction method that won't be QEd, regulated or otherwise fiddled with. The greedy people looking to get rich are what ruined it.

The decentralised transaction element is the part that interests me. Up to now I've had zero interest in bitcoin/crypto's etc., however the potential of selling gold for bitcoin whilst simultaneously placing a short sell on the bitcoin spot market would negate the bitcoin price volatility. Wouldn't matter if the price of bitcoin doubled or halved before you later spent the bitcoin (re-bought gold) - it would still buy back the same amount of ounces of gold (less costs).

As I understand it short selling bitcoin requires bitcoin as collateral, which you'd have from having sold gold for bitcoin. It's not a derivative market so there's no leverage (1:1) so low risk. Then later you repurchase gold, anywhere else in the world that caters for doing so, paying in bitcoin whilst closing the short bitcoin position. There'd be transaction costs/fees (and spot market fees are typically higher than futures) and gold sell/re-buy spreads however those costs are perhaps less than it might have otherwise cost to transport physical gold across international borders or to have liquidated into domestic currency (such as Pounds), electronic transfer those Pound and repurchase gold elsewhere - and without the hassles of having transactions halted pending 'fraud' investigations when selling gold for Pounds and/or sending/conveying Pounds abroad.

Fundamentally requires ...

1. Someone prepared to buy your gold and pay in bitcoin

2. A account/whatever in which to receive/hold the bitcoin

3. A short spot bitcoin market account

4. Someone prepared to sell you gold for bitcoin

I'd imagine that 2 and 3 might be available within the same account/outfit. But with low, near zero knowledge about bitcoin I have no idea about possible accounts/outfits for that, but my interest is piqued enough to start investigating such avenues, if not just only as a fallback option for if "conventional" selling (or buying) gold ever did become more problematic.

I dislike the modern world where bank deposits sees that money become the banks money; Or stock brokerage accounts where deposits becomes the brokers money, where they'll buy the stocks/shares you like, but registered in their name, not yours. And where the tendency is towards Bail-In's where savers/investors fund bail-out's, not taxpayers. Considerable concentration risk factors should a fraud/failure instance occur during the next 20, 30, whatever years that you might be investing. One way to alleviate that as I see it is to for instance hold 25% in a 2x leverage stock, 75% in physical gold (coins/whatever) instead of 50/50 stock/gold. This is a US data example for that. So if the stock brokerage falters/fails perhaps as part of broader contagion due to a large fraud/whatever, then you're still sitting on 75% physical gold holdings and are likely down a lot less than many others (so relatively wealthier) for having hedged some of the risk.

Edited March 7, 2023 by Bratnia