Thread: Banks in Spain! Good ones or bad! Your opinion please

Now i'm with La caixa, no problems whatsoever. Yes they charge a yearly fee for cards on the account ( 12e i think.) but other than thatnothing i can think. I don't even pay for alterations/cancellations to S/orders or D/debits,paying in cheques. I was told before i moved here that Spanish banks have some of the highest charges in the world so it didn't come as a shock being asked to pay to transfer money into the account. When i was transferring the bulk of our money, some years later i just went in and said i've paid enough, i'm not paying 0.4% on this and they cut 60% off without another word.
I found recently that if i transfer money using HSBC on line service ( about 1,5 cents off wholesale rate. Only worth it for small amounts, currency broker is better for large sums.) the money is in our account and available before i can get in car, drive 4kms. to nearest branch to check!
P.S. I agree re: Santander, neighbours go white when you mention them.

A banking experience this week.
I have been with Caixa Catalunya since 2004 and there has only ever been one cashier serving and lots of people sitting in offices behind. The cashier is usuallly the same grumpy old man. I had a tax bill to pay which didn't have a barcode.
He just shouted no number and threw it back at me.
I went to Caixa Penedes where there were 3 staff, 2 of which spoke English, all 3 discussed the problem and told me I had to go to Agencia Tributaria to register my NIE .
Extremely helpful, I am now considering changing my bank for good. Need to consider implications of costs and transferring of direct debits.

I can readily identify with your experience, Keith. Change banks. Mind you they're all out for themselves but in terms of customer service, I like Banco Halifax. Just 25€ service charge a year and pleasant staff. That can change from branch to branch though.

Never worry about the hassle. I presume the system, for their benefit and ours, is similar to that of the UK.

All you do is give them the details of your dearly departed bank and they transfer the lot; all the business bits and bobs, and presumably free of charge. All you need do is sign where they tell you.

Yes. we did exactly the same, only from Barclays , worst bank in Spain in my opinion, to Caja Rural. Just gave them a list of DD's and SO's and they changed everything over at no charge, and they have an English speaking person on the staff for those complicated conversations. Highly recommended.

When we lived in Javea, we banked with CAM, & agree with all the positive comments posted.
When we moved down to Almeria, because of the better climate, there were no CAM's in the area, so were reccomended to Caja Rural (de Almeria), and had good service.
Over recent years they they have been expanding madly(as CAJAMAR), and we now find that various new charges are beginning to creep in.
An assistant Manager we liked moved on & 6 months later we bumped into him in the street and found that he was the manager of the newly opened local branch of CAJASUR.
We opened an a/c with him and transferred most of our DD's, but Mobiles & Telefonica took forever to effect the changes (surprise!)

Have had geat service from friendly staff, who clear our UK cheques (pensions, inpayments)after 5 days if we need to, good exchange rate (previous day's bbc tv teletext exchange rate), & no commission on cheque currency exchange.
Possible future problem is that they are one of the very few Spanish Banks in trouble & have been taken over by UNICAJA. However, their largest shareholder is the CHURCH, so they have pretty unlimited funds to call on at a crunch.

Bad banks:- Beware of Banco de Andalucia. and its sisters in Banco Popular group
Charge commission on Sterling inpayments, on top of poor exchange rates, so that the cost of running an A/C there is high.

It appears that Barclays offer good terms, incluing 3% cashback on Direct Debits for Utility Bills, and no commission transfers from Barclays UK - not yet found out whether this is instantaneous, electronic, as well as no maintenance. May open an account there after checking further as Carole has her UK A/C with them.