Personal accounts are no problem. It becomes more difficult when it is for an entity. Kind regards, MK
If you set up an dellaware corporation(you dont have to be resident) you can get a bank account pretty easly(for the corporation).
Why go through all the trouble in this day and age of globalisation? Assuming you are based in Europe, the easiest way is to ask your local bank to open a USD denominated current account. Usually, these accounts pay a small interest, accept cheque deposits ( sometimes needed to be able to process the archaic cheques received from the US ) and you can freely move the money between the US and Europe in USD with relatively small fees and in relatively short periods of time (usually within 3 business days ). Also, by keeping the money in USD in your account, you have more control over the time and quantity to execute the FX trade into your local currency when it suits you best. Hope it helps.
Just an update if anyone is interested. I ended up opening a bank account with Citibank International Personal Banking in Singapore. Transferring money from IB resulted in no fees on either side. They also provide a USD credit card and the account is multi-currency so I can keep SGD in there as well. The only disadvantage I can see is transferring USD out of the account to the US will incurr Int'l transfer fees. Cheers.
Is this treated like a USD account in a foreign bank, or an account in a US bank? I mean can you do ACH transfer from another US bank? It appears it is just a USD account in a foreign, since you pay international wire fees.
You are correct it is a USD account in a foreign country. It meets my needs since with zero cost to transfer money out from IB to my account and paying my US$ expenses with the US$ credit card then I completely avoid the issue I had with currency conversions and fees associated with charging US$ to a SG$ card and transferring US$ from IB to a SG$ bank account to pay for it.