Has anyone recently opened a german bank account for themselves. Ideally with a BLZ and Konto number, and online banking?
Something has changed legally and certainly in central Germany I was asked for a residence card before I could open one. Has anyone opened an account recently at a local Sparkasse or similar along the border?
I opened one in 2007, had it for a few years and now I need another.
I have some garage spaces in Germany that I receive a nominal rent from, and need some economical way for tenants to pay. I understand that by law I need to provide a German account.
Could well be because of anti-money laundering and also the incoming FATCA law and it’s consequences. But if you’ve got 100,000 or more Euros to deposit Deutsche Bank might be willing to take you:
I played around with this yesterday and found an interesting option. The bank is called DKB and they offer a GIRO account (checking) with a EC and VISA cards. They charge nothing to run it, no minimum balance and even seem to give you 1% interest! You can open an account online ( did it using a swiss adress and us citizenship). I will have a follow up conversation with them by phone and will send them a copy of my passport.
I have no idea if this is true, but since Switzerland is part of SEPA, as of next year all that is required is a valid IBAN/BIC combination. In fact the rules clearly state that you can not be required to have an account in a particular state in order to make or receive payments. So I doubt that anyone will get too excited for the couple of months that remain if you use a Swiss IBAN/BIC combination.
The account is free, the asscociated Visa-Card as well. Using this card in the €-zone is always free for both payments and ATM-withdrawals (1:1).
Most interesting is the option to withdraw cash, worldwide, free of charge. They apply the current mean fx-rate, without any markups. Furthermore, even if the foreign ATM charges a fee, and even if this fee is mentioned on the foreign ATM ́s screen before you withdraw, such fees are re-imbursed on simple request by email. (They claim this cannot be automated.)
I once requested such a refund for withdrawals made in Thailand, just to see if it works. Result: After 2 days I received an email, confirming that the funds are credited, and they were.
Only drawback is using the Visa card for non-€-payments, in which case they charge a 1.75% markup. Solution: Don ́t use the card for this type of transaction, but withdraw cash instead. (I use www.kalixa.de for non-€-payments, since that ́s entirely free. But those guys only open accounts with a German address :/)
So my personal summary is: If you like fees, don ́t open a DKB-account. In all other cases: Do!
Does the Visa card work as a EC Card or do you get one as well? The KFC in France doesnt take anything other than EC cards for machine orders. I always have to order at the counter with my non-existent french. (the results are always bad)
I have a savings account with the Deutsche Bank, I can receive money at Swiss ATMs, but I cannot make money transfers. They pointed me to the German Post Office Bank when I asked. I am now opening a DKB account, thanks for the advice!
I'm in the process of opening a DKB account right now. After the online application, they contacted me by phone, we had a brief 5 minute chat. (standard know your customer questions) Afterwards, i got an email asking me to certify my documents. I can either go to germany using postident (which is free for me) or do it from here by having a bank or a lawyer fill out an included form, stamp it and send it to them. (unknown charge) I am now trying to decide which option to choose.
What documents do they ask for? For me (I opened it several years ago) they asked for zip-nothing-nada, except to see my passport, which was done during the postident-procedure in the postoffice in Germany.
Postident is a super-easy option. Beware though that the postoffice-guys just add their standard "postident"-form, which consists only of taking down and certifying your details from your passport. All other papers you give to them, they just include into the envelope without checking. So you ́re responsible that everything is complete and signed.
This strategy is so not-standardised, that I dislike it by default. But would be interesting to know the details, should you decide to go this way.
Well as an update, i have opened the account and received all of the documents as well as the giro card. It went pretty easily. I am going to transfer some money tonight. Just as a general question, do banks charge a fee when sending money from a CH IBAN to a DE IBAN?? If so i will do it by xe.com
Even within the SEPA-zone transfers are only free, if the transfer is from an EUR account to an EUR account. So unless you have an EUR-account in Switzerland, there will be a transfer-fee.
Next, the fx-rate. All banks will usually suck your blood on that. So, as a summary, even if you do have an EUR-account in Switzerland use fx.com or any other service of the like. I personally like+use currencyfair.com, but transferwise and several other should also do the trick.
This seems to no longer be the case, at least with my bank. I sent 350 euros on Wednesday evening and it was in my DKB account today. There were no charges by DKB, and no charges by my bank. The "official" rate by xe.com at the time i sent the transfer was 1.235. I received 1.25002 from my bank...so all in all a good, cheap experience.