Charges by Spanish Banks for cash

virgo17

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Why should a business provide a service to non customers free of charge?

Having owned a dwelling in Spain for many years and needing to open and maintain the obligatory Spanish bank account, I can confirm that they are excessively greedy.

As eDicky comments above, they want it all ways, a commission from the card issuer, plus a charge to the card holder.

However, after reading about the closure of so many ATM's in the UK it looks like the practice might spread to the UK.

MEM62

virgo17 wrote: »

Spain is very bad for this type of thing. The Spanish banks are IMO the greediest in Europe.

They are trying to recover all the money they lost from defaulted mortgages :rotfl:

Emily_Joy

In this case I would use a Revolut card in a supermarket and ask for a cashback.


This is also a common way to withdraw cash in the US, as some banks have branches/cash machines only in certain states.

zerog

Emily_Joy wrote: »

In this case I would use a Revolut card in a supermarket and ask for a cashback.


This is also a common way to withdraw cash in the US, as some banks have branches/cash machines only in certain states.

I don't think you can get cashback from a Revolut card. Usually it only works with domestic debit cards and may not even go through a payment processor such as visa/mc.

I believe Revolut is a prepaid card and if you could use those for cashback it would allow all sorts of cash recycling and fraud that banks don't like.

pcoventry

Starling bank mate - regular current account with no overseas fees and the card is a Mastercard debit so is accepted all over the globe.

Works for me.

gallifreyangirl

Telebanco in Spain haven!!!8217;t charged me for using their arm.

sausage_time

pcoventry wrote: »

Starling bank mate - regular current account with no overseas fees and the card is a Mastercard debit so is accepted all over the globe.

Works for me.

Agreed, but this thread is about charges levied by the Spanish banks for ATM use. Starling don't have any control over that, although some banks in other countries (eg NZ, US) will refund any ATM charges made by other institutions. Be nice if one of the FX load free card providers in the UK started offering this as a competitive advantage!

fabsaver

I think it is free to use Santander cash machines in Spain using a Santander debit card.

From their FAQ

If you have an adult current account and pay in at least £500 per month, you can get free cash machine withdrawals in Spain when you use any Santander cash machine.

NoodleDoodleMan

Starling bank mate - regular current account with no overseas fees and the card is a Mastercard debit so is accepted all over the globe.

Works for me

As above - it won't work if the ATM's parent bank imposes their own fee for using their hole in the wall.

Starling have no control over that, nor do any of the other (few) UK banks that offer fee free debit cards on certain accounts.

If you have an appropriate Santander account, their branded ATMs are fee free in Spain, the Balearics and Canaries.

There was a thread hereabouts last year where a contributor mention ATMs in Spain that were still commission free - Caixa, BBVA, BVM, Banco Popular Telebanco, Ibercaja and Abanca.

Of course these may no longer be fee free - that was several months ago. The ATM will (or should) flag up a warning that a fee is applicable before you hit the confirm transaction button.

BoGoF

Caixa still free last month