Opening a Bank a/c in another Member State

esperanza

As an EU citizen, you are now entitled to open a bank account in any of the member states. You just have to prove that you are resident in one of the member states.

You may be interested in reading this:
Opening a Bank Account in another Member State

I have bank accounts in France and Germany, very handy as each offer different services which allows me to completely avoid debt.

esperanza

You can also now get a mortgage, life insurance, motor vehicle insurance from anywhere within the European Union.

Viva l'Europe!

eth0_

Has anyone here actually gotten motor insurance or a mortgage from another member state?
What about the caveats on tv ads for the above in the UK 'Not available in N.Ireland or the channel Islands'?

eth0_

Has anyone here actually gotten motor insurance or a mortgage from another member state?
What about the caveats on tv ads for the above in the UK 'Not available in N.Ireland or the channel Islands'?

pan

While at a european level this should all be possible, in practice national gov's haven't implemented the directives yet, or there are a lot of loops to jump through.
e.g. there amount of proof to open and irish bank account is hard even for an irish citizen to obtain, 2 proofs of address and 2 photo id's (very difficult when moving house or renting)

But I look forward to the future when I can shop for insurance etc across the EU

esperanza

I recently opened two accounts with German banks and all I needed was my passport and proof of my last salary.

pan

esperanza wrote:

I recently opened two accounts with German banks and all I needed was my passport and proof of my last salary.

How do you get by with the language? Have you lived there or are you opening online?

Can you elaborate on "completely avoid debt" part. What other advantages do these banks provide...mhh ya got me curious now!!

esperanza

I speak fluent German and have also lived in the country. Completely avoid debt, never had to take out a loan, have slogged for every penny!

Bluehair

esperanza wrote:

I speak fluent German and have also lived in the country. Completely avoid debt, never had to take out a loan, have slogged for every penny!

Yes but you specifically said in your first post that your foreign bank accounts are "very handy as each offer different services which allows me to completely avoid debt."

I think what Pan was getting at is we are curious to know what these services are and how exactly they 'allow' you to 'completely avoid debt'.

esperanza

They offer debit cards, such as Visa Electron and Maestro which are not offered here in Ireland. I can use these for Internet purchases and there is no danger of not spending more than I have.

ambro25

French banks also offer "direct-debit" VISAs or MasterCards, i.e. wherein the amount of the purchase or cash withdrawn is immediately taken from your CA, pretty much like a Laser would... in addition to the fact that such cards have been CHIP-&-PIN for well over 10 years.

Big interest is (i) you use it worldwide just like you would a 'normal' CC, (ii) you get free travel insurance if you purchase your hols/travel arrangements with it, and (iii) online fraud protection - only, on top of that there's no % at all on purchases or cash advances (of course! it's direct-debited, doh! :rolleyes:). But as Esperanza stated, of course, it pre-supposes that you actually earn the €€€ first

I use my FR MC for all things Paypal & Internet, and only ever leave enough in the account that I can afford to lose if the card was ever cloned/misused online, with a no-overdraft (i.e. no risk of the sc@mbag withdrawing/purchasing for more than what's in the CA, typically €300). My FR bankers love me for that (reduced risk/exposure for them), so I get exempted from the Gvt's "generalised social contribution" (about €3 a month, taken on any current account) for my troubles. For the record still, € transfers from BoI to provision the FR CA are free and take on average 3-4 days.

Interested to see the insurance thing - I'm all ready and lined up to put my IE & UK cars on my Dad's FR Fleet insurance @ next renewal... worked it out (with FR broker) at about €293 fully-comp for both the MX-5 and the Impreza :eek: ('ole Hibernian et al can start to worry :mad: )

Tazz T

Seems an interesting way of avoiding atm card/chequebook duty.

But how do you pay your wages in?

ambro25

Why would you want to? Having your salary wired off wouldn't contribute much to your credit rating here - in fact, I'd hazard very much less...

Imposter

ambro25 wrote:

Why would you want to? Having your salary wired off wouldn't contribute much to your credit rating here - in fact, I'd hazard very much less...

And if you could get a loan and/or a mortgage with a foreign bank you'd need an Irish credit rating for what reason?

ambro25

Well, it depends on the country and the way credit ratings operate.

In the UK, for example, you'll not get any (worthy) credit rating if you don't have a UK postcode/are not on the electoral roll.

In France, more onus is placed on your actual banking history, than whether you're registered to vote somewhere or you live in a caravan on the beach :rolleyes:

I'll not talk about Luxembourg, the RC may have probes herein

Mortgages are a nice hypothesis, I've yet to see it happening (as in: UK/FR/DE products made available to an Irish citizen, say) and am not holding my breath much. 'Multinational' car (and even home?) insurance, on the contrary, is much more feasible in the shorter term...

esperanza

ambro25 wrote:

French banks also offer "direct-debit" VISAs or MasterCards, i.e. wherein the amount of the purchase or cash withdrawn is immediately taken from your CA, pretty much like a Laser would... in addition to the fact that such cards have been CHIP-&-PIN for well over 10 years.

Big interest is (i) you use it worldwide just like you would a 'normal' CC, (ii) you get free travel insurance if you purchase your hols/travel arrangements with it, and (iii) online fraud protection - only, on top of that there's no % at all on purchases or cash advances (of course! it's direct-debited, doh! :rolleyes:). But as Esperanza stated, of course, it pre-supposes that you actually earn the €€€ first

I use my FR MC for all things Paypal & Internet, and only ever leave enough in the account that I can afford to lose if the card was ever cloned/misused online, with a no-overdraft (i.e. no risk of the sc@mbag withdrawing/purchasing for more than what's in the CA, typically €300). My FR bankers love me for that (reduced risk/exposure for them), so I get exempted from the Gvt's "generalised social contribution" (about €3 a month, taken on any current account) for my troubles. For the record still, € transfers from BoI to provision the FR CA are free and take on average 3-4 days.

Interested to see the insurance thing - I'm all ready and lined up to put my IE & UK cars on my Dad's FR Fleet insurance @ next renewal... worked it out (with FR broker) at about €293 fully-comp for both the MX-5 and the Impreza :eek: ('ole Hibernian et al can start to worry :mad: )

Does CA stand for credit Agricole? If so, are the transfers 100% free? I get charged 75 cents per transfer to my German account (Sparkasse).

isolde

that's really interesting; is this a recent development or has it been around for a while?

a friend of mine had awful problems trying to open a bank account in England recently, as she had no proof of address, as she had just moved over there.
i will need to open a UK account in about a fortnights time as relocating there for work, so hoping i won't have similar problems.

ambro25

esperanza wrote:

Does CA stand for credit Agricole? If so, are the transfers 100% free? I get charged 75 cents per transfer to my German account (Sparkasse).

Well, I'd intended CA to mean Current Account, but as luck/coincidence would have it, indeed I bank with Crédit Agricole in France

isolde wrote:

that's really interesting; is this a recent development or has it been around for a while? a friend of mine had awful problems trying to open a bank account in England recently, as she had no proof of address, as she had just moved over there.

In fairness, it is (was until recently?) the same here, though. I've had to just about give my blood type to BoI to open an account when I started work in Dublin, good job my employer had been banking with them for decades.

I'd expect that a letter from your new UK employer should smoothe things no end

And yeah, it must be a new development. I'm not 100% on tax laws in IE, but I know (for instance) for a fact that a FR person, according to FR Tax laws, is not allowed to hold any foreign account - not that 'they' ever enforce the provision, but if you were to be subjected to an enquiry by the FR taxman (happens all too frequently in FR, everyone gets 'controlled' at least once in their life), life would suddenly get more...mmm... interesting

esperanza

ambro25 wrote:

And yeah, it must be a new development. I'm not 100% on tax laws in IE, but I know (for instance) for a fact that a FR person, according to FR Tax laws, is not allowed to hold any foreign account - not that 'they' ever enforce the provision, but if you were to be subjected to an enquiry by the FR taxman (happens all too frequently in FR, everyone gets 'controlled' at least once in their life), life would suddenly get more...mmm... interesting

This sounds quite unfair, doesn't it. So much for liberalism! Looks like France will be quite slow in approving the Eu directive on foreign accounts then. Do you know by chance which European countries have approved the directive? I'm finding it difficult to get hold of information. I think Ireland does allow it (as I have opened accounts abroad), and I can never see the tax people checking up on me anyhow!

If you can let me know, I'd be very grateful!

ambro25

I'll look it up when I get a minute
I believe that the FR attitude (and Statutes) where foreign accounts are concerned was just so people wouldn't be stashing €€€ overseas and that the taxman would know exactly the extent of your/my wealth... and I believe Ireland to be the same (until recently?), when there was all that big ooh-aah with the tax amnesty last year - typical socialist (and/or greedy gvt to be fair) knee-jerk thing. Funny how, both in IE and FR, suceesful people are not *empirically* allowed to be successful, it's "bad" to be doing well, etc. eh? )

esperanza

ambro25 wrote:

Funny how, both in IE and FR, suceesful people are not *empirically* allowed to be successful, it's "bad" to be doing well, etc. eh? )

I put it down to Catholicism and its strict class structure.
For another thread perhaps!