Converting bank statements to another currency?
If the account is not dollar-denominated, I would say it does not make sense at all to have dollar-denominated statements. Such a statement would not even be accurate for any reasonable amount of time (since FX rates constantly fluctuate). This would be a nightmare for accounting purposes. If you really need to know the statements in USD, I think the best practice would be to perform the conversion yourself using Excel or some similar software.
How can I correctly account for having money in different currencies, without currency transfers or currency fluctuations ending up as gains or losses? In my view, your spreadsheet should be in multiple currencies. i.e. if you have gained some in specific currency, make a note of it in that specific currency. If you have spent something in a specific currency, then make a note accordingly. You can use an additional column for reporting this in a neutral currency say GBP. If you are transferring the money from account of one currency to account of another; change the balances as appropriate with the actual conversion rate. If you need this record keeping for tax purposes, then get a proper advise from accountant. GBP is widely traded currency and it is definitely possible to send GBP internationally with out any conversion. Of late banks are trying to maximize the FX and if they see a Euro country the sending bank assumes the beneficiary account is in Euro and converts to get FX spread than letting the beneficiary bank decide. Keep complaining to your bank and then the sending bank will put your account in exception and not convert next payments "I haven't used transfer wise, so can't speak to their price.   Regardless of what service you use, what you should look for is whether the conversion price is greater than how much you think the currency's price will move.   Example: if your bank charges ~8% on any currency exchange, you should ask yourself whether you think the pound (or whatever currency) will drop by &gt;8% within whatever time frame you've set for yourself. If not, you're better off keeping your money in that currency.   I checked out their site and it does look like transferwise is pretty inexpensive, around .9% in transaction costs. So again, ask yourself whether you think the pound will drop by 1% in your time frame. Doesn't seem like a lot, but also consider that currencies typically fluctuate by just a few tenths of a percentage per day.   I know you're probably looking for an answer like ""pound will drop, sell it all,"" but I don't know enough about currencies to be giving advice there. I would definitely pay attention to Brexit negotiations though, as that will be one of the biggest influences on both currencies for quite some time." The big risk for a bank in country X is that they would be unfamiliar with all the lending rules and regulations in country Y. What forms and disclosures are required, and all the national and local steps that would be required. A mistake could leave them exposed, or in violation of some obscure law. Plus they wouldn't have the resources in country Y to verify the existence and the actual ownership of the property. The fear would be that it was a scam. This would likely cause them to have to charge a higher interest rate and higher fees. Not to mention that the currency ratio will change over the decades.   The risks would be large. "The Option 2 in your answer is how most of the money is moved cross border. It is called International Transfer, most of it carried out using the SWIFT network. This is expensive, at a minimum it costs in the range of USD 30 to USD 50. This becomes a expensive mechanism to transfer small sums of money that individuals are typically looking at.   Over a period of years, the low value payments by individuals between certain pair of countries is quite high, example US-India, US-China, Middle-East-India, US-Mexico etc ... With the intention to reduce cost, Banks have built a different work-flow, this is the Option 1. This essentially works on getting money from multiple individuals in EUR. The aggregated sum is converted into INR, then transferred to partner Bank in India via Single SWIFT. Alongside the partner bank is also sent a file of instructions having the credit account. The Partner Bank in India will use the local clearing network [these days NEFT] to credit the funds to the Indian account.   Option 3: Other methods include you writing a check in EUR and sending it over to a friend/relative in India to deposit this into Indian Account. Typically very nominal costs. Typically one month of timelines. Option 4: Another method would be to visit an Indian Bank and ask them to issue a ""Rupee Draft/Bankers Check"" payable in India. The charges for this would be higher than Option 3, less than Option 1. Mail this to friend/relative in India to deposit this into Indian Account. Typically couple of days timelines for transfer to happen." "I found an answer by Peter Selinger, in two articles, Tutorial on multiple currency accounting (June 2005, Jan 2011) and the accompanying Multiple currency accounting in GnuCash (June 2005, Feb 2007). Selinger embraces the currency neutrality I'm after. His method uses ""[a]n account that is denominated as a difference of multiple currencies... known as a currency trading account."" Currency trading accounts show the gain or loss based on exchange rates at any moment.  Apparently GnuCash 2.3.9 added support for multi-currency accounting. I haven't tried this myself. This feature is not enabled by default, and must be turned on explicity. To do so, check ""Use Trading Accounts"" under File -> Properties -> Accounts. This must be done on a per-file basis. Thanks to Mike Alexander, who implemented this feature in 2007, and worked for over 3 years to convince the GnuCash developers to include it. Older versions of GnuCash, such as 1.8.11, apparently had a feature called ""Currency Trading Accounts"", but they behaved differently than Selinger's method." "Your bank Lloyds sent the Australian bank $500 AUD, having converted $317.90 GBP at a rate of 1.5728 AUD per GBP which was slightly less than the published rate which normally applies to transfers measured in hundred thousands if not  millions of pounds.  Using the published rate amounts to an unstated fee of 11 AUD which you are not complaining about.  You also paid a fee to Lloyds of 20 GBP which you disclosed after I had posted this answer. The Australian bank refused to accept the payment because the account to which the money had to be deposited was closed.  Perhaps, instead of just sending back $500 AUD, it converted the amount to GBP (less its fee of what I suspect is $60 AUD) and sent it back.  Notice that the bank rate of 1.592 AUD per GBP says that 276.58 GBP is what you get from a tad over  $440 AUD, and so perhaps St George's charged you a $60 AUD fee for the conversion while converting the rest ($440 AUD) to GBP. Or maybe Lloyds  got $500 AUD from St Georges and charged you a $60 AUD fee for converting it to GBP. Regardless of who did the  conversion, it is also possible that the rate you got (not  quite as good as the published rate) corresponds to $450 AUD converting to 276.58 GBP and a $50 AUD fee for the conversion.   You said I was told by Lloyds TSB that St. Georges wouldn't levy any charges, as they would be paid a separate ""agent's fee"". This might have been told to you as ""St. Georges will not be levying any charges if you send $500 AUD for deposit to the account in Australia and your payee will get exactly $500 AUD if you pay us 317.90 GBP plus 20 GBP as our conversion fee today. If you want to send GBP instead, we cannot tell you how much to send  because St. George's will levy a charge for conversion to AUD, and the conversion will be at the rate then prevailing. So your payee may receive more or less than $500 AUD."" Perhaps, wanting to send exactly $500 AUD, you chose to pay Lloyds TSB and send AUD. But, since the account was closed, the money came back, and so you ended up paying yet another conversion fee. The questions are, who charged the second fee? As Muro said in a comment, it should be listed somewhere on the itemized statement. and is it a reasonable charge? I think $50 or $60 AUD is excessive but, then, I am not a bank, and maybe that is what their standard (minimum) charge is. As I said in my comment, the charge is usually a percentage of the amount transferred subject to a minimum levy that the bank sets." Either way you'll be converting to US Dollars somewhere along the line. You are seeking something that is very redundant If I understand your question, you're misunderstanding the buy/sell spread, and at least in this instance seem to be in an unfortunate situation where the spread is quite large. The Polish Zloty - GBP ideal exchange rate is around 5.612:1.  Thus, when actually exchanging currency, you should expect to pay a bit more than 5.612 Zloty (Zloties?) to get one Pound sterling, and you should expect to get a bit less than 5.612 Zloty in exchange for one Pound sterling.  That's because you're giving the bank its cut, both for operations and so that it has a reason to hold onto some Zloty (that it can't lend out).  It sounds like Barclay's has a large spread - 5.211 Buy, 5.867 Sell.  I would guess British banks don't need all that many Zloty, so you have a higher spread than you would for USD or EUR. Other currency exchange companies or banks, particularly those who are in the primary business of converting money, may have a smaller spread and be more willing to do it inexpensively for you.  Also, it looks like the Polish banks are willing to do it at a better rate (certainly they're giving you more Zloty for one Pound sterling, so it seems likely the other way would be better as well, though since they're a Polish bank it's certainly easier for them to give you Zloty, so this may be less true).  Barclay's is certainly giving you a better deal on Pounds for a Zloty than they are Zloty for a Pound (in terms of how far off their spread is from the ideal). It can be done, but I believe it would be impractical for most people - i.e., it would likely be cheaper to fly to Europe from other side of the world to handle it in person if you can.  It also depends on where you live. You should take a look if there are any branches or subsidiaries of foreign banks in your country - the large multinational banks most likely can open you an account in their sister-bank in another country for, say, a couple hundred euro in fees. In addition to TransferWise that @miernik answered with and that I successfully used, I found CurrencyFair which looks to be along similar lines and also supports US$. "First thing is that your English is pretty damn good.  You should be proud.  There are certainly adult native speakers, here in the US, that cannot write as well. I like your ambition, that you are looking to save money and improve yourself.   I like that you want to move your funds into a more stable currency. What is really tough with your plan and situation is your salary.  Here in the US banks will typically have minimum deposits that are high for you.  I imagine the same is true in the EU.  You may have to save up before you can deposit into an EU bank. To answer your question:  Yes it is very wise to save money in different containers.  My wife and I have one household savings account.  Yet that is broken down by different categories (using a spreadsheet).  A certain amount might be dedicated to vacation, emergency fund, or the purchase of a luxury item.  We also have business and accounts and personal accounts.   It goes even further.  For spending we use the ""envelope system"".  After our pay check is deposited, one of us goes to the bank and withdraws cash.  Some goes into the grocery envelope, some in the entertainment envelope, and so on.   So yes I think you have a good plan and I would really like to see a plan on how you can increase your income." The easiest options appear to be to open an account with one of the large multinational banks like Citi. They have options such as opening two separate checking accounts, one in each currency, and Citi in particular has an international account that appears to make mutli-currency personal banking easier. All of the options have minimum balance requirements or fees for conversion, but if you need quick access this seems to be the best bet. Even if this is a one-time event and you don't need the account, a bank like Citi may be able to help you cash the check and get access to the funds quicker than a national or local bank. http://www.citibank.com/ipb-global/homepage/newsite/content/english/multi_cap_bank_depo.htm Alternatively if you know anyone with a US bank account you can deposit it with them and take the cash withdrawal from their account, assuming they agree, the check isn't too large, etc. There's no need to move it to a different currency, but if your bank is in Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Spain or Greece, you might consider moving it to a different Eurozone country. Finland, Austria, Germany or the Netherlands seem safest at present. There's a small risk of a forcible Eurozone exit followed by redenomination of bank deposits into a new currency that will immediately collapse. "My solution when I lived in Singapore was to open an account with HSBC, who at the time also had branches in the US. When I was home, I used the same debit card, and the bank only charged a nominal currency exchange fee (since it never had to leave their system, it was lower than had it left their system). Another option, though slightly more costly, is to use Paypal. A third option is to cash-out in CAD and convert to USD at a ""large"" institution - the larger your deposit/conversion balance, the better the rate you can get. To the best of my knowledge, this shouldn't be taxable - presuming you've paid the taxes on it to start with, and you've been filing your IRS returns every year you've been in Canada."