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They charge commission on the currency conversion. That won't be refunded when you get the money back.

Yes, it is a seperate regulated entity. It was not seized by the regulator.

It's the price we pay for living in such a small country!

If you want to pay large transaction charges anything is possible. You'd want to be investing a fair chuck everymonth to make that worthwhile, quarterly or biannually might make more sense. Otherwise someone like Quinn Life might suit the monthly investor.

Personally a euro denominated fund is probably a better bet because you will save on currency transaction costs that only add another layer of fees to the brokerage costs. For someone looking for a basic start, a European (Eurostoxx 50 or Stoxx 50) tracker, or even a MSCI World Index tracker...

They don't, they will be as expensive as any other ATM in the UK. Ulster Bank let you make cheaper withdrawals from RBS ATMs in the UK and Citizen Bank in the USA.

You wouldn't avoid any currency risk. The price of the share on the two exchanges will equal (or virtually equal) each other when you covert to USD or CAD. Otherwise we could all make millions in arbitrage. Buy in whichever market you broker charges the lowest fees. There might be some tax...

A quick question to tag onto here, what is the tax treatment of EFTs? Are they the same as individual shares, i.e you just declare dividends and capital gains?

Get a credit card and load it up so that it is in credit (i.e the bank owes you money). If you take money out with the card you get a very good f/x rate and you pay a low commission (1.75% with BOI). Just make sure you don't spend more than you loaded onto it otherwise you'll pay cash advance fees.

NIB have a share trading account that is more or less as competitive as TD Waterhouse and they usually wave the annual fee if you open an account with them. Even then the TD Waterhouse annual fee is hardly high, brokers have to make money somehow! Forget the trading classes, A Random Walk Down...

Not neccessarily, with some companies you are able to buy directly from them (such as GE: [broken link removed]). AFAIK only big US Corporates seem to offer this kind of service.