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All,
I know that this topic has been discussed on and off before but, as many of you are now completing or well into the completions process, I wondered if you could pass on your thoughts and recommendations on setting up bank accounts in Spain? We will all need one to transfer money into to cover community charges, water , electricity, etc and to use when we over there. Can you start to use this thread to advise on who you are using, ease of transferring money into account, charges, etc ? Thanks.
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Kev
Halfiax offer a Spanish account, with all the prperwork in English. You can do some of the leg work via your local Halifax branch (they can verify copies of pasports etc which you then post to Halifax in Spain). They then offer free transfers between a Halfiax UK account and the Spanish one - so that could be useful if you are going to do regular transfers.
You open the Spainish account with a minumum of 400 Euros. The whole process took me about 2 1/2 weeks from sending in the application to getting my cheque book and visa cards.
If you open an Extra account, they also offer some free services - such as document translation (free for a 600 word doc), legal helpline, taxi ordering service (?!) and some which might not be so useful (e.g. flower ordering... ??!!) - but then you never know when you might need an emergency bouquet of roses I suppose...
Theres a Halifax branch in Mazzaron, and also in Los Alcazores. You can specify which one you want to be your home branch.
I think that others have gone with CAM bank because they are due to open a branch in Candado at some point. I don't intend to be visiting my branch in Spain much (I hope), so Halifax seemed like an easy option for me.
URL is - http://www.halifax.es/
HTH
Cheers
Russ
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Hi Kev,
As Russ has said, Banco Halifax is easy to set up and use. We have opened an account with Halifax in Mazarron, the branch is 50yds past the roundabout with the sailing boats in the middle on your right,easy to find. Take some documents to your branch over here, ie copies of passports, utility bills with your name on it etc. You can open a current account for 600 euro's but if you go below this they charge you or you can open an extra account for 600 euro's and you can go below this, this costs 25 euro's a year because you become a member of the halifax members club with all the add on's included, if ever you use them.
It's easy to transfer money over, once you have given them your Mazarron branch details over in the UK they lock the details in for you and then you can transfer over free of charge without any ID. We are using Halifax for the utilities etc and our Cam bank account is just for the mortgage so we'll be sending a lump sum over to cover a few months payments.
Regards,
Chris and Tracey
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Chris and Tracey
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Hi Kev,
We also opened an extra account with Banco Halifax.
We did our first transfer from our English Halifax account to our Spanish Halifax account a few weeks ago. We found it a really easy to do by telephone and got an exchange rate of 1.23. We'd been offered 1.2 by Lloyds TSB the same day.
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Hi Kev
Sorry, I know this is foing to sound like we all have shares in Halifax!
But I too have a Halifax account, what I like is the option you have:-
1) Go into to your local branch in Uk.
2) Ring a central number and do transaction of the phone
3) Internet
4) Contact with Mazarron branch direct.
All english speaking.
Recently I opened a high interest account transfered monies from my Spainish Current account into a high interest within about 15 mins telephone and fax. Takes longer in this country!
Good luck!
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Hi Mike & Dawn
Do you know what the interbank rate was on the day you transfer your money at 1.23 or the date you made the transfer and I can look it up?
This will just give me an idea of how good the rate is Halifax give.
Regards
Phil
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I have made my very first transfer today! From new sterling account with the Halifax to new Spanish account, £500 as you need to have an average of 600 Euros in the account to get free banking. Pretty easy to do. Spanish account was set up with Halifax on the phone, sterling account at our local branch, who also verified passport and utility bill for Spanish account. Then this morning a few security questions. I then did the transfer, because you are transferring from Halifax sterling to Halifax Espana there is no charge, so usual £19.50 was waived, I got a rate of 1.228 which I didn't think was too bad.
Easy to do each month for future mortgage payments, at least that is the plan!
Lindsey
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Sounds like a good account, have I got this right?
1. No transfer fee from UK.
2. Exchange rate at 1.22ish when interbank rate is 1.26ish.
3. No receiving fee from Banco Halifax Hispania?
Can someone confirm if number 3 applies?
If this is the case it sounds better than most of the money specialists!
Thanks
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HI All
I opened a Euro current account with Cam Bank who we got the mortgage with and I transferred (no fees) a bulk amount yesterday through Currencies Direct to make final payment for completion on the 15th and got a rate of 1.2606 which I thought was really good and they have said if I set up a regular monthly DD to transfer a set amount for my mortgage each month from my English Acct into my Spanish account that also will be at no fee. I thought that was a pretty good deal so have gone for that option for now.
Carol
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Carol
That's exactly the arrangement I have, although I'm not sure about no fees as I have two items shown on my Cam statement of €15 and €5, will find out what they are when I visit next week.
I rang CD and asked for a rate for sending €1000 and was offered 1.2 against the interbank of 1.26, I was just testing the water, so I'm now very sceptical of the rates offered! certainly would be happy with 1.26!
I also enquired regarding a regular transfer and whilst they did say there would be no charge, the rate would be lower than the interbank rate (wouldn't say how much lower) but would give 1 cent higher than a spot buy.
I'll probably try the plan with CD and see how it goes but the Halifax account interests me if there isn't a receiving charge. This message was last edited by 1098 on 7/5/2008.
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If you send a one off bulk transfer with CD of less than 5000 Euro the rate is lower and there maybe a fee unless its the arranged DD for mortgage payments then there is no fee and I would expect the rate to be lower anyway for such a small amount, but I transferred 20K euros, and it cost me £15865.47. Moneycorp who I used last November kept phoning me to try and match CD offer but the best they could do was 1.2401 so I went ahead with CD and will now setup a DD for a monthly amount. Wont know until I go out next week about receiving fees from CAM as I havent used account yet only had acct numbers through.
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Fair comments, I'll be doing the same next week.
I've set with the internet bank service so I can view online.
When you visit Cam don't forget to ask for the internet service, they supply you with a PIN number and internet card.
I had to go to Mar Menor for mine.
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Hi Phil & 1098 and others
The day we got 1.23 with Halifax the interbank rate was around the 1.26 level.
There are no fees for transferring money from the UK and no receiving fees on the account in Spain. I checked our Spanish account after the transfer and no fees had been taken out. The transfer does take up to 3 days though.
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I dont mean to sound a bit blonde but what does interbank rate mean?.... and why if that rate is always higher do you settle for a lower rate? Sorry I just aint that clued up on banking terms... 
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Hi 1098,
When we transferred our money over to halifax spain from uk there were no charges at all, no transfer or receiving fee's and like Mike we got 1.23 when the interbank rate was 1.26. At the time the tourist rate at the post office was 1.21 euro's. So a good deal from the Halifax.
Chris and Tracey.
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Chris and Tracey
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Quite simply, it's the rate they buy at versus the rate they sell to you at.
So the lower the rate they give you the more they make, but of course you have to balance this out against any charges for sending and receiving.
Never simple is it?
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Out of interest what happens if you go below the 600 euro minimum balance? charges? loss of interest? firing Squad?? 
Also can you open a halifax account without NIE numbers.
Cheers
Dan
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From what I understand, if you go below 600, you get charged 18 every 6 months i think.
I'm not sure about the NIE's. I have mine but can't remember filling them out on the application form. I remember photocopying my passport and providing utility bill/bank statement.
HTH
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Kelly
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We have got the xtra account where there is no maintenance fee charged if the balance falls below 600€ but for this there is an annual fee of 25€
The normal account is reviewed every 6 months and if the average balance in the account over a 6 month period is below 600€, a maintenance fee of 18€ is applied.
We did not need NIE numbers to set up our bank account.
Hope this helps
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