For what it’s worth, they have accepted my TransferWise debit card for the initial investment. On the other hand, they told me they would not accept my TransferWise UK account as a reference / withdrawal account.
Limiting withdrawals to bank accounts in the investor’s (or player’s) own name is common security practice for brokers (or internet gambling sites). So are restrictions on source of incoming funds, especially when operating with limited face-to-face customer identification.
Interesting… I would make sure to first sort out the part on how to get the money back once you need it. So it looks like there is no way around opening a UK bank account if you want to deal with them directly or at least recover your money once you are at that stage.
Hopefully UK bank accounts do not have a negative interest rates 
or high fees…
That‘s not the issue. The issue is the high minimum investments they require to even remotely consider opening a bank account for a non-resident. It‘s nearly impossible to do, unless you are investing five- (at a minimum) or six-figures sums with them - at less than stellar conditions.
Seems that Fundsmith did, however, accept my foreign „proper“ bank account. Its sub-optimal exchange rates and fees for SWIFT transfers might be a useful deterrent that keeps me from wheelin & dealin with these funds and nudges me to treat it as a long-term investment.
Isn’t the minimum investment for their T class fund £1000? or are you speaking of the I class?
Strange because I called and they told me they do not accept any transfers from non UK bank accounts. Your money might get sent back to you in that case, or maybe that’s just the “official” version…
You are right it is quite a struggle and takes quite some time to deal with such matters. I just called 2 banks in the UK and both of them require you to have UK residency to open a bank account with them. So even the option of opening a UK bank account for easier process and less fees is not possible.
Not speaking of Fundsmith whatsoever. Speaking about British banks‘ requirements to open a payment account for non-residents.
That should have been much easier as a EU/EEA resident, due to the EU right to a basic bank account - but that has probably gone as well. And Switzerland, of course, was never part of the EU in the first place.
I’m hoping that I will be able to make subsequent investments beyond my initial one. Going directly through Fundsmith UK might prove not to have been the easiest or most efficient way - but it‘s kind of part of the adventure (and yes, I have been burned before though with investments into a foreign investment fund). On the positive side, I hope to be able to visit their annual shareholders‘ meeting in London though.
RIght, got it now. Yes, I saw £500’000 to open an international bank account at Barcalys. I wonder who does that hehe 
Keep us posted on that, I would be really interested to know if it really is doable on the long term as you do. The Fundsmith AGM seem to be cult, watched two of them and I like the guy he is charismatic and pragmatic at the same time.
I can’t help anymore other than to say IB is the simplifciation I have been waiting for. I don’t know why anyone would complicate life so much to save GBP 4.95 
Yeah you are right, I already sort of know that at the end I will probably go for the IB option for simplicity reasons but I like to explore all the options first and then decide based on the facts. I appreciate that every one is contributing and sharing here their experience.
Small update: Successfully registered for the online access, where I am being shown the option to top up my existing investments (minimum of £1000 lump sum via debit card or £100 monthly per Direct Debit).
It’s not really about the savings, since I incur costs in investing directly with the fund as well. I sometimes prefer to cut out the middleman. Also, I don’t want to hold everything and concentrate risks at IB but prefer to spread the risk. Lastly, international account opening can be an interesting journey in and of itself.
Congrats! The thing with debit card or direct debit is that this is only possible with a UK bank account as far as I know. But here I guess you can simply do another wire bank transfer from your Swiss bank account. Just you need to inform them by fax or phone before you do that, or can you do that through their web interface? Would be interested to know as soon as you do a successful top up.
Well, the TransferWise debit got accepted, and I am seeing the funds invested in my account. Though that card obviously has been issued by a UK (non-bank) PSP. They also support GBP Direct Debits. The question is just whether Fundsmith will mind the non-bank status of them.
I am not going to wire funds via SWIFT from my Swiss account unless I absolutely have to.
Nice job! Transferwise seems to be the way to go then but let’s not forget the fee of Transferwise can also get quite high. I’ve tried to example of sending CHF 5000 to a GBP account on the website and for that you pay CHF 21.99 which is 0.44%. So yes for bigger amounts it can get quite expensive too.
Now the question would be if Fundsmith accepts Transferwise to get your money back and how high the fees are from Transferwise back to your Swiss bank account (if necessary). For the latter I suppose the fees are the pretty much the same as to send to Transferwise.
Why dont you send an email. Their support knows probably better then we do.
Rather inexpensive. Sure, it’s not quite free as in Revolut doshing out their VC funds cheap Forex trading (like at IBKR), but overall 0.44% is very decent. You’d pay more at most other banks.
As I stated above, said they would not. I explicitly asked them on the phone, and that’s what the representative told me after clarifying with someone else (though I can’t imagine there’d be a technical hurdle preventing them from making that bank transfer).
Side note: called them twice. Must have been the fastest English talkers I’ve ever heard on a customer service line 
I see, I am rather inexperienced with forex fee rates. So far all I’ve seen is IB and DEGIRO so as you say comparing them to Transferwise might not be very fair. Glad to know Transferwise fees are fair.
Right, couldn’t remember that important fact. I have also mailed them beore as @TrickMcDave suggests to ask them directly. We’ll have to find another solution to withdraw the funds, as you don’t want to get stuck not being able to withdraw regularly your money once you’re FIRE.
Hehe, I love their accent too. I also called around 2 weeks ago and got quite a surprise first thing hearing a recording of Terry Smith welcoming you on their number
@San_Francisco I was wondering did you go for the accumulating or the distributing version of their T class fund? I guess accumulating is more optimal for us as international investor.
Definitely the accumulating version. I don’t want to depend on the very few options of UK bank details for non-residents to receive distribution payments.
That’s what I thought regarding accumulation. I found now an interesting video from PensionCraft you might also like to watch where Ramin says that the Fundsmith Equity Fund outperforms others tracking the same index such as the MSCI world index simply because it charges more fees (5x more in comparison to iShares Core MCSI World). He mentions that at 2:50 in the video. I don’t really understand how can a fund perform better just because it has higher fees? Somehow it does not make any sense to me but I don’t have any economics background…
Note that this video is already 3 years old so some parts might be slightly outdated such as that the T class requires minimum monthly payment of £100 (never found that piece of information on their official website).
That doesn’t make much sense.
I guess Fundsmith uses the MSCI World index as a benchmark against which to compare (and wants to demonstrate outperformance); it is not tracking it like the others (which can then get cheaper, if they just “replicate” it).
