Morning all!! I guess you have been asked this lots but can anyone recommend a decent Spanish current/savings account with a bank that won't cripple me with fees when I try to send sterling from a UK account?
A lot of the cajas (=UK building society type) are merging to improve their resistance to financial problems. CajaSur is in Administration and has been taken in hand by Banco de España, prior to that there was talk of CajaSur merging with UniCaja. We are with Caja Granada but, of course, it depends where you live as to whether which Cajas serve your area. We don't pay any charges for transfers from UK. Bear in mind, you probably won't get any interest on your account if you are non-resident.
SOL Bank dont charge for transferring money in, and they do a special ex pats account which includes all kinds of extras. You do pay for the account though, but iirc its no more than I used to pay for UK accounts with these additional benefitis
Caixa are worth enquiries, mine cost me 14€ a year. I use their hole in the wall to transfer from Nationwide, I was getting 1.20 € to the pound last week with no commission charges.
I'm not nit-picking but do you mean you withdrew some money from your Nationwide account at your hole in the wall dispenser at your spanish bank?
If so this is not transferring money from one bank account to another.
I use the above method (withdrawing money from Nationwide a/c at a cash dispenser here in spain) to effectively transfer money from the UK to here. Nationwide is the only UK bank/building society that allows this without makiing charges. Hope this all makes sense! I got 1.23 the other week. Excellent rate.
I would recommend you INGdirect or Openbank. These are banks that you work with via internet. You can make transfers to other accounts in Europe for free, they dont have any charges for anything (except for withdrawal of money in certain branch of other banks, but you have all the information when you open the account). I am spanish and the only accounts I have are in these two banks I have told you. You can also try barclays, I have heard its not bad.
Thanks guys!! Have you been able to transfer sterling funds directly into your Spanish account and let the Spanish bank convert them into Euros. I have sterling funds offshore and don't really want them hitting the UK again.
I have transferred from U.K. using Halifax U.K. to Halifax Spain. I cannot envisage a problem but there is a Spanish declaration form to fill out. However the question regarding off shore should be asked of your Spain bank manager.
I transferred a largish sum from my offshore a/c to Solbank last week, no questions asked..
Maybe when you get to the £20k mark????
Or maybe Solbank aren't that inquisitive - they have never asked where funds I transfer originate.
You beat me to it Hepa. I recently opened an acct with Halifax and can transfer from my UK acct to here free. Acct costs 25E pa and no other charges. I am lucky I have a branch near me so very handy.
Yes, you can open a non resident account. We opened our Halifax Hispania account when we still lived in the UK, using our UK address. Once we were resident they changed it over to a resident's account. The process to open the account was simple and everything was done from the UK.
We also opened a non-resident's account but we did it here in Spain after we had decided on the rough area we wanted to live, so that we knew we had a branch of the bank near us (the Halifax would have been no use to us since they are near the costas). Make sure you go to a bank/branch where they really know what they are doing. Our first attempt was with Santander and the Asst Manager made such a cock-up of it that the Banco de España blocked our opening an account (with any bank) for three months which was, to say the least, inconvenient!
We ended up with the Caja Granada on the recommendation of our abogada who also used that bank/branch and while waiting (three months, see above) to be able to open our own account we sent money to her account for making payments on our behalf.
Note: with many banks, etc. you may get no interest until you have a 'resident's' account.
I've no idea . I think it's just too keep an eye on everything . Something to do with money laundering probably. When I transferred the mine it was because I live here now & wanted the majority here but there was nothing in their codes for tha . In the end it was put as living expenses & any I transfer now still are.
I wouldn't worry about it the amount of transactions done daily must be astronomical & probably impossible to keep track of. It's just spanish paperwork.
What fascinates me is with their love of paperwork how they allow cheques to be written 'al portador' ( pay the bearer ) where you can cash them in a branch of the issuing bank with no questions asked .
For love of paperwork you can't beat the Czech Republic. Same goes for bank inefficiency. Many people still don't have bank accounts or cards and use cash for everything, even large transactions.
In mid-2008 the crown was strong against the euro so we bought a large quantity for our new life here and transferred them into my offshore euro account.. The transaction took over three hours!!!! The clerk had never done anything like that before - my bank was in a village 5km from Prague. He got the mountain of paperwork wrong and had to do it again. After I finally left the bank, emotionally and spiritually exhausted he phoned me to ask where the Channel Islands were, were they part of the EU ...was the Queen Queen of Jersey and so on.
Cheques are unknown to Czechs (!) and I read somewhere they're being phased out in the UK. Don't know if this is true..
I´ve never heard of anyone happy to accept a cheque when they´re filling the black money drawer.. cash, cash, cash is all anyone like that will accept. I can´t even remember the last time I wrote a cheque, must be five years or so ago at least!
Almost free banking with free international transfers
If you have a bank account in the UK with the Halifax / Bank of Scotland group, and you open a bank account in Spain with Banco Halifax Hispania you can make transfers between the two account free of charge.
All banking is free of charge with Banco Halifax Hispania although there is a small annual fee of 25 euros. You get a lot of extra services free of charge and the bank has 24 hour telephone banking in English, and an English speaking person in every branch.
Go to one of major Banco Santander Banks and get a proper consultation with an English speaking person. .. There are all sorts of schemes, such as accounts without administration fees and more. You also get it when you take part in certain bank pension schemes. If you are very wealthy, your assets should never show in a bank's balance sheets, in case a bank goes bust. Unlikely with Banco de Santander, though.
Bringing a certain monthly amount into your accout of about Euros 600 will also buy you a fee free account with Santander. Find out...
On Tenerife Island and in the rest of the Canaries, non- residents didn't have to pay tax on savings accounts up to now. Otherwise, this tax also depends on your general income when you are a resident in Spain. Resident means living there more than 6 months. This is only a rule of thumb, though.
Be careful with cajas off lately. They say that they were too much mixed up with construction companies. I would stay away therefore. Credit debts go into trillions.
Just starting to look at all this now in anticipation of our move - my brain hurts already!
Can you have accounts with a Spanish bank where one account if in € and another is in £? Probably not I am guessing.
Also, transferring savings - I have quite a large savings account here in the UK which I will want to transfer much of to €, is there a best way without raising eyebrows or losing money?
Yes you can have a dual account. SOL Bank (Banco Sabadell) do it.
To transfer funds you can use one of the money transfer companies like currencies direct, HIFX, ITT Moneycorp or have a Spanish bank that has a UK partner as mentioned elsewhere on this forum
Hi there was looking at Santander and also Caja Murcia which is the best are the staff English speaking also (until we learn the language) and also can i do on line banking with either?
Foreign residents in Spain who receive their retirement or pension in the Spanish account usually don't have to pay bank fees with certain banks.
Euros 600 salary, retirement or pension money is sufficient as monthly account deposit or transfer with Banco de Santander. On the other hand, there is a 2nd option with this Spanish bank. You open a pension account which will be refunded to you when you will be 65 years old.
Monthly 50 Euro payments are all which are needed for it. You can cancel such an account whenever you wish.
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