banking services

The bank charges in Spain are very expensive for non residents and can be up to €60 per quarter. 

A lot of members on here have switched to Wise Online Banking. You can get an EU IBAN number.

www.wise.com

Steve

Banking is always a huge subject on Costa Blanca Forum, the main reason being that, unlike UK banks, Spanish banks tend to charge maintenance fees to account holders, and the picture is always changing.

There are online banks and pseudo banks like Revolut and Wise which offer most of the services of normal banks but which don't charge fees. You can pay your direct debits through them. The Cajamar Bank, which is more like a building society, offers a fee-less online account, and this is one I am seriously considering should my current bank Sabadell introduce unacceptable charges for what is currently my free account.

Be aware that Spanish banks after Brexit started charging fees (around 18€ a time?) to receive payments from non EU banks and other institutions. This does not apply to the UK state pension, which you can specify to be paid directly into your Spanish bank in euros with no fee attached. This is what I do with my pension into my Sabadell account. The exchange rate used by DWP is always good too.

I have also found it convenient to retain my UK bank account and not notify the UK bank that I have moved to Spain. Some UK banks will not allow account holders to reside overseas. I got around this by using a relative's address as my UK registered address. Like you, I have a few occupational pensions, I also receive share dividends which are all paid into my UK account. If I want this cash in Spain, I just transfer it using Wise online with no extra fees at either end. It is also very handy to have a UK debit card and cash to call on when I visit the UK. You might want to compare costs transferring your house purchase cash over using Wise or using your UK bank. There will be a huge difference!

I've been here five years and have jumped through all the hoops. For example, you might well be asked to get a bankers draft from your Spanish bank to complete the house purchase. That is expensive. There are ways to get around it or mitigate the cost. Sabadell offered me a half price bankers draft if I took out house insurance with them. I did this for the first year but dropped them afterwards because they weren't competitive. Check out Gran Alicant insurance brokers who advertise on this site for insurance products.

If I can give you further help, PM me. Good luck with the move.

We use Sabadell at the top of the Urbanisation. We have a small pension paid in each month and don’t pay charges. Susan

Thanks for the heads up, will be arriving at the urbanisation  on the 20th March.

Hi
I'd like to put an end to the myth of expensive banking in Spain, yes there are expensive alternatives just like anywhere else but if you dig around a bit you can find alternatives.
I found this account with Sabadell and have had no trouble the last two years with this basic account.
https://www.bancsabadell.com/cs/Satellite/SabAtl/Cuenta-de-pago-basica/6000034843962/es/

I pay 3 euro a month. All direct debits for electricity, taxes etc.

A visa card (debit) that I've used all over Europe with no problems except for a couple of places in Germany.

IBAN number.

An app that works fine all over Europe, this might sound weird but I've experienced other Spanish apps that don't allow access outside Spain, Iberdrola to name one.

I make my transfers using SEPA from my Swedish bank account.
The guy at the La Marina office that helped me setup the account was very helpful.
I think there is one catch with this account, you can't have another account anywhere else but I can't see why I need one at the moment.
Before I found this account I visited all the other banks and found none of them to be as helpful as BS.
Others have a similar offer but they require residency, I was in a catch 22 situation, needed an account but didn't have residency and BS were the only one I found that offered a basic account for non-residents at the time.
I tried N26 and Revolut but had problems as I didn't get a Spanish IBAN, all the companies that I wanted to setup direct debit refused to accept a foreign IBAN, this I've later discovered is known as IBAN discrimination and the EU encourage people to register companies that refuse to accept non local IBAN's but it doesn't help much when you need to pay your bills.
At the time I was searching there wasn't an EU IBAN as far as I know, perhaps this has come as an answer to the discrimination.

BBVA offer an online banking account free of charges but when you read carefully it mentions residency. I tried to apply for this online but was forced to show myself at an office for verification so I visited the office in Guardamar but when they discovered I wasn't a resident they just sent me across the street to Santander who told me I could get an account for 150 euro per annum.

Good luck, it can be frustrating that's why I like to let people know about this alternative.
/Dave