Whats the best bank to have in Spain. Most seem to charge you to even have an account and then charge you for producing the cards.

I currently put my money under the mattress but the wife is complaining as its now 2 metres above the ground, so I need to find a bank.

hey normske, can you give us your home address here in spain

well, it is well known that spanish banks are some of the most lucrative banks on earth.

from my experience, they are all pretty much the same as far as the fees, commissions, etc... so go with one that gives god service.

i have had accounts at "caja madrid", "bsch" and "la caixa" and prefer "la caixa" myself.

their online banking is VERY secure and services complete.

saludos,
jer...

Nice one, cheers Jer. I'll take look, and I like the bit about 'god service' if he's a customer then its the bank for me!

I have many banking questions.
Which bank is best for international exchanges? I'll have montly income from the US and UK coming into Spain to be changed to Euros. What's the best way to angle that sort of thing, to keep from being raped for the fees/exchanges? An international three-currency account? An offshore thing? How do you make it work? Anyone know?
(I asked god, but he hasn't got back to me..)

jejejeje, a wee typo there as the scott in me would say

quote:

Which bank is best for international exchanges? I'll have montly income from the US and UK coming into Spain to be changed to Euros.

- take your pick, they will all charge pretty much the same commissions. the only bank that is totally commission free is ing direct (http://www.ingdirect.es) but they do not allow transfers from nor to banks outside of spain, only between them and other spanish banks.

quote:

What's the best way to angle that sort of thing, to keep from being raped for the fees/exchanges? An international three-currency account? An offshore thing? How do you make it work? Anyone know?

- jusr resign yourself to the fact that you will be taken! best thing you can do is go personally to a handful of banks either when you arrive or in writing from abroad and tell them your situation, then pick the one that gives you the best deal. also, the better the relationship you have with your bank branch (the one you go to most and usually where you opened the account) the better off you will be. for example, the employees at my branch here in madrid often "forget" to charge me commissions. usually it is charge him one, let one slide, charge him one, let one slide, etc...

i really have no money coming in from uk and any money that comes in from u.s.a. is money i transfer myself from my paypal account so i think you need someone else's opinion here as well.

anyone out there in the situation that rebrites will be in?

saludos,
jer...

I get paid in US dollars from a couple of different sources. We kept our US credit union and use it for all of these sorts of direct deposits--the interest that we can earn on our savings is better in the US than what we have found here in Spain. We pay any US bills from this account, including our US mortgage and credit cards. Since the exchange rate hasn't been good, we have been transfering over the bare minimum to our Spanish bank (Caja Madrid) every couple of months by wire transfer to pay rent and bills here.

Our US Credit Union doesn't charge us a fee to use ATMs in Spain, so we use our US debit cards for cash withdrawals, too. Caja Madrid charges out the wazoo if you use an ATM other than theirs...

I mostly use my Caja Madrid debit card for charging up my cell phone. Aside from this and withdrawing money from time to time, we mostly use our Spanish bank for doing ingresos and receiving ingresos. That's one really nice feature of the banks here.

Visa is now charging 1% on all foreign purchases, so I think we are going to make an effort to start using our Spanish debit card for more purchases. Also, I've noticed that some stores do a currency exchange on foreign cards directly, and when they do, they give you a pretty bad exchange rate (I noticed this the other day on my Sfera receipt). Yet another way to skim off the top...

I use a Nationwide Flex account. I believe its
the only uk atm card that doesn't charge anything. You just get the exchange rate on the day. Only problem is you have to take the cash to your Spanish bank.

I also think they charge around £3 for transfers (takes a week or two) but I'm not sure.

Another point. I'm sure I'm paying all these charges so the entire bank staff can smoke in front of me and ignore me at the same time! I am a smoker but there is a limit.