Does anyone have any recommendations

You are looking at a non-resident account and many banks there no longer offer such. They give various reasons, but I suspect like the UK many are scared about money laundering risks. Have you thought about other options such as CurrencyFair, Transferwise or even Paypal. The only one I can see a problem with is ACA whom you are likely with for water. The problem is actually getting the bill or even knowing when you will get one, last I looked they had no facility to get the bill on line, all the other utils you can.

Thanks. We are going to be buying furniture, paying for decorating etc and don’t want to be paying transfer fees for withdrawing Euro from our sterling UK account. We would like to keep the Italian bills separate.

You can do the same for furniture via CurrencyFair, Transferwise or even a Caxton, Fairfx or Halifax clarity card and pay little or nothing in fees. Paypal will cost, but may be needed for some things.

I would suggest looking into Revolut. I use this card & account for all of my purchases in Euros, it's super easy to setup, they give excellent exchange rates, and there are no exchange fees. I haven't yet used my Revolut EUR account to pay bills in Italy, but I do have an IBAN and BIC attached to my "Euro Account" so in theory it should work. Will be testing it very soon... For purchases, I just transfer a chunk of GBP over into my EUR account from time to time (without fees and at the market rate, *not* the bank rate) and use it like a regular debit card. I won't be using my Italian bank card for any purchases in EUR, it's just easier to keep track of spending on my Revolut app.Lastly, regarding banks I haven't used them personally, but I did speak at length to Fineco Bank recently and I do know they're doing a big push at the moment to open GBP/EUR accounts for UK clients. Might be worth starting with them. Good luck!

Thank you!

Yep, one I forgot Fineco here...

Why not use Revolut.
It's a prepaid debit card that you can load up from your UK current account, exchange your £ to € (or $) in seconds with no charges and at better than bank rates.
You can also transfer funds between other users at no cost.
It works with a card and also an app on your phone where you control everything.
I have been using it for years and will probably use it instead of doing CE when buying our house in Abruzzo.

Thank you!

Mmmm

With Revolution there is a 2% fee for withdrawals over £200 per month. I think an Italian bank account is the way to go

Go premium. Unlimited charges, unlimited transactions

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