Bank Account for Student in Spain

Legacy_user

My daughter is due to do a year in Spain as part of her course come September

She will need a bank account out there but of course all her grants, loans etc must be paid into a UK account.

I don't suppose anyone knows of a UK/Spanish bank account tie-up that would minimise her losses due to conversion charges etc when transferring money between them?

AnnBar

!!!!!! wrote: »

My daughter is due to do a year in Spain as part of her course come September

She will need a bank account out there but of course all her grants, loans etc must be paid into a UK account.

I don't suppose anyone knows of a UK/Spanish bank account tie-up that would minimise her losses due to conversion charges etc when transferring money between them?

I would have a look at citibank as they do euro current accounts that you can open and operate from here.

Voyager2002

The obvious would be to talk to Santander. Lloyds also help with accounts in Spain: I think you need to visit a Lloyds branch in the UK to find out details, but they should be able to open an account with their Spanish partners.

melancholly

it should be easy enough to find one that is good for overseas and specifically for spain. who is her student account with? can she speak to people who've done this in previous years and see what they did?

glider3560

Halifax UK accounts can do free transfers online to accounts held with Lloyds Bank Spain (or Banco Halifax Hispania, as they were formerly known). The exchange rate isn't brilliant, but it offers a simple method of getting the money to Spain.

System

melancholly wrote: »

it should be easy enough to find one that is good for overseas and specifically for spain. who is her student account with? can she speak to people who've done this in previous years and see what they did?

Her student account is with Natwest. I keep telling her to ask the people who did it last year but she keeps forgetting!

Voyager2002

!!!!!! wrote: »

Her student account is with Natwest. I keep telling her to ask the people who did it last year but she keeps forgetting!

Dare I say it, but why isn't she asking for advice here? I would not expect to do this kind of research for my son, who is about to become a student. They need to discover that if they fail to organise things like banking, they suffer inconvenient consequences.

alicerach

!!!!!! wrote: »

My daughter is due to do a year in Spain as part of her course come September

She will need a bank account out there but of course all her grants, loans etc must be paid into a UK account.

I don't suppose anyone knows of a UK/Spanish bank account tie-up that would minimise her losses due to conversion charges etc when transferring money between them?

Hi! I just found this thread after some frantic google searching. I am in the same position as your daughter and was wondering if you've managed to find anything yet?

So far I've asked Halifax, who redirected me to Lloyds, where the lady I spoke to was not the most helpful. From what I gather you CAN open a Spanish account with them, but they will not help you do it. You have to phone their international office who will send forms to you. I decided to see if there was a bank who were a bit more "supportive" first before I went down this road.

I also went into Santander as I thought that logically you would be able to get some sort of deal with them involving free transfers. You can't as apparently Santander UK and Santander in Spain are separate companies.

I've heard people mention Barclays, HSBC and Nationwide as all having some form of international account too but I've yet to go into branch and ask about it. Just wondering if anybody here had any information first?

Thanks

finder

!!!!!! wrote: »

My daughter is due to do a year in Spain as part of her course come September

She will need a bank account out there but of course all her grants, loans etc must be paid into a UK account.

I don't suppose anyone knows of a UK/Spanish bank account tie-up that would minimise her losses due to conversion charges etc when transferring money between them?

Hi there

There is no 'free-banking' in Spain as we know it here in the UK. If you have a high street account, you will normally be required to pay annual account fees, pay to transfer money, pay for your debit/credit cards after the first year, you pay for withdrawing money in cash machines that don't belong to your bank, etc, etc...

Having said that, I would suggest that you tell your daughter to check OPENBANK (click on the link). It is the internet arm of Banco Santander in Spain (a bit like First Direct is the internet arm of HSBC). I think this is one of the most competitive accounts she could actually have (if not the best). I am not sure about the €/£ exchange rate. You are going to have that problem with any other account anyway (Halifax claims that it transfer your money for free to Halifax Hispania; that is not entirely true as it gives you a not very competitive exchange rate).

Once you had the account open in Spain, you will want to fund it. For that matter you could use the services of your UK bank, but those dont tend to be cheap. If you were initially going to transfer a substantial amount of money, perhaps you should check a Foreign Exchange (FX) broker; the more money you send, the cheaper will be to go with the broker. Last time I was checking I was considering Moneycorp, but I let you do you own homework with this. Check this thread for more info.

Buena suerte for your daughter!

atypical

I've heard that Citi offers the most competitive exchange rates and the lowest fees:
http://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/banking/international/eurocurrent.htm

Note however that the account is based in the UK. I don't think she would be able to manage it from branches in Spain, but she can obviously access the money via ATMs.