Best place to open a euro account?

Tony_Exeter

I am about to start work in Germany for 10 months, and will be paid locally in euros. What is the most economical way to deal with this? If I have the money transferred to my UK bank account I guess I will lose a significant amount in transfer fees; but for a year is it worth opening an account in Germany? And if so, which bank would be best?

Tony

grumbler

Yes, it's really worth opening a local account.
You can always convert money to £ by sending it to your UK account.
See fxcompared.com.

benjus

People on here used to recommend DKB for Euro accounts back when they used to offer accounts to UK residents. Now I think it's just available to residents of Germany/Switzerland/Austria, but that's not a problem for you. Can't comment on their service though.

Transferwise is good for transferring from your Euro account to your UK account.

Archi_Bald

It's going to be difficult to open a reasonably priced / free Euro current account if you don't have an address in a Euro country. Barclays and Citibank do Euro accounts but they are expensive / have prohibitive requirements.

Once you are in Germany, and provided you speak half decent german, you should be able to walk into any of the local banks and open an account there and then. They will of course want see proof of ID (passport) and residency (registration with local authority).

There are also some banks that are entirely online, and you use the Post Ident service to have your ID verified. Unfortunately, it appears to have got more difficult in recent years to get identified, due to the growing threat from all sorts of money launderers.

I opened an account with Netbank a few years ago when I was in a similar situation as yours. They are on online-only bank and the current account is free but they only open accounts for german residents. I knew the local postmaster who did the Post Ident for me so I had an easy ride. Once you got the account, you can keep it even if you are no longer a german resident.

You could also try your luck at comdirect - they definitely used to offer accounts to people not resident in Germany. Not sure whether they still do.

This might be helpful: http://www.kontofinder.de/ratgeber/girokonto-fuer-auslaender

Have you asked your employer whether they can assist you, e.g. with a letter confirming your employment?