My folks are very kindly giving me a deposit on a future house (or anything else).

I have various (what I consider substantial, but not that much) savings in various Sterling accounts, funds, ISAs & all the rest.

Anyway I'm a little concerned about the level of debt in this country & suspect there may be problems in the future, I believe the euro is too flakey due to the diverse countries involved & the dollar is just waiting to drop off a cliff.

So back to the main query: are there any British banks that offer accounts in Swiss francs, failing that are there any Swiss banks that let you open an account with a relatively small amount of money.

I am not speculating or investing, I am only trying to protect myself - I intend to split the money over several different "safer" investments.

HSBC do, but they don't seem to pay any interest on Swiss Francs.

Also, I've been trying to open a Canadian dollar account with them for over a month now and after several phone calls and emails they still can't manage to send me the PIN for the Internet and phone banking. I'm down a couple of thousand dollars now compared to having transferred the money when they originally opened the account... solely because of their faffing.

http://www.offshore.hsbc.com/

The Bank of Scotland also offers "Currency Accounts" in various currencies. I am thinking the same way and have just opened such an account

I can only find information on Euro, Sterling and US dollar accounts on their site?

Is it me or are the interest rates on there rubbish?

I've been with those guys for a few years and they seem quite nice:
http://www.citibank.com/uk/bankingproducts...rency/index.jsp
CHF, CAD, JPY, they have all major currencies ticked. Interest rates are rubbish but hey can't have everything

Wish I'd known about the Citibank accounts before .

Still, my PIN finally arrived, so I can start getting out of Sterling at last... at least the exchange rate went up a couple of percent yesterday as the US dollar tanked, so I'm no longer taking a significant loss . Hopefully the dollar will be going down more in the next few days.

Swiss central bank rates are 0.65%

Anyone know why? Could do with finding out before I stick my money there.

Forgive my ignorance, is that for a year?