Banks in Germany
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Asking for a friend: which German bank is least likely to be staffed by assholes? She lives in a small student town and gets her stipend via Deutsche Bank and so far has had the worst banking experience in her life: staff is rude and only stops being rude to assist her for disability-related reasons (and then starts being rude again); everything imaginable is done by snail mail, which takes ages; rudeness only becomes worse if they sense your German being less than perfect, which doesn't help any.
As an example, she would like to be able to shop online. For that, she needs to visit the office in person and request in her broken German a special QR code to be mailed to her address. It takes a few weeks to be delivered, then it has to be scanned by their banking app, which doesn't work because maybe the code expired after being in transit for a month, maybe for a different reason, either way,
computeriPhone says no.In her home country, even the government-subsidised bank that's usually the butt of the jokes makes it trivial to log in to their website and request a free virtual VISA for online payments.
Is it possible to find a bank in a small student German town that would be more friendly towards English-speaking people with less-than-perfect German?
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@aitap "Deutsche Bank" is for business customers.
In virtually any German town (or even village), you'll find a "Sparkasse" or "Raiffeisenbank" which take care of common people. "Online banking" is common. You'll get a bank card to withdraw money from ATMs or pay in shops (typically works inside the EU plus a few states nearby). A credit card is not so common.
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@BernieTheBernie said in Banks in Germany:
a bank card
Do you mean a debit card? If so, it will still be issued by Visa or MasterCard so you can use it in all the same ways you'd use a credit card, including online purchases.
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@Deadfast All debit cards I have are from the Maestro brand. While it might be a brand issued by MasterCard, using it as a credit card is not possible AFAIK when online vendors don't explicitly list it...
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@JBert Ah, I didn't realise Maestro was still around elsewhere. I remember it existing many many years ago in Czechia before being completely phased out and replaced by Debit Mastercard.
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@BernieTheBernie Sparkasse is terrible. They are exactly these banks that give you a lot of trouble with their old fashioned thinking.
Anecdote: After I left Germany, I accidentally locked myself out of my account. Considering that both my mail address and phone number had changed, they offered no way of reactivating it without me visiting a branch office in person. For security reasons. Luckily, terminating the account completely and in that way transferring all funds to another account could just be done with a simple snail mail letter. Which proves that they only do “security” to make old people (their major audience?) feel secure, not to actually keep your money safe.
I have good experiences with e.g. Sparda and N26. Online banks like N26 and ING usually offer a free debit MasterCard that you can use for online shopping.
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@Grunnen yes, Sparkasse is for private customers and “old people” (I’m not that old but I have an account), their advantage being that they have offices everywhere and they have ATMs literally everywhere that you can use for free. Other banks might have far fewer of those or might charge a fee if you use a “foreign” ATM, i.e. one not from your bank or a partner bank. That might however not be a problem for these weird people with non-German behavior that pay everything with cards instead of cash like a good German does.
There’s banks specialized in online banking (of course I do online banking with my Sparkasse account, too) that might be more appropriate here. ING Diba as mentioned above, maybe DKB.But if you pay your bread with CC, be prepared to just move your weird interactions from the bank to the bakery.
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@aitap Can only tell you anecdotal evidence.
When I began studying I wanted to open an account with a bank at the city where my university was located. There were two banks next to my appartment: The Deutsche Bank and the Commerzbank.
First I went to the Deutsche Bank. I told them I wanted to open an account and was told, rather unfriendly, that I'd need to make an appointment and the next free slot would be one week away.
Then I went to the Commerzbank. Told them the same. They promptly asked me to take a seat and whether I wanted some coffee while I waited; fifteen minutes later I walked out again, with my newly opened account.
Based on that experience I later took two Erasmus students to them and they were equally friendly to them.
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@aitap would an online bank like Revolut be an option? Everything is done over phone and you get your card in the mail.
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@JBert said in Banks in Germany:
All debit cards I have are from the Maestro brand
Unfortunately, some banks in Europe founded their own system called "V Pay" - so the debit card is often no more linked with the world-wide maestro system. Also I would prefer the old Maestro card, because it worked also in South east asia, north africa, canada - V Pay does not.
But that is generally enough for use in Germany and else where in Europe - you hardly ever need a Visa / Master or other credit card. For payments in web shops, we use bank transfer. Either by paying the amount to the shop owner's account in advance or - more often - by giving him the account number such that he can take it then from the account ("Einzugsermächtigung" - that's quite safe: if you find something strange, just tell your bank within 6 weeks, and you'll get the money back). Also paypal can be linked with your bank account that way - no credit card required at all.
Only for transactions with some foreign businesses like foreign airlines, you'll need a credit card. Or when staying at expensive hotels (that's when I got my first credit card: my employer booked only crazy expensive hotels like Hilton for business trips, and showing up there without a credit card is ... a real PITA) - but that's not relevant for a student.
Btw "student": show the bank a proof that you are a student ("Immatrikulationsbescheinigung" - you like long German words, don't you?), then you won't pay so many fees for your account.
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@BernieTheBernie said in Banks in Germany:
. Either by paying the amount to the shop owner's account in advance or - more often - by giving him the account number such that he can take it then from the account ("Einzugsermächtigung" - that's quite safe: if you find something strange, just tell your bank within 6 weeks, and you'll get the money back). Also paypal can be linked with your bank account that way - no credit card required at all.
Eww.
Elsewhere in Europe, the situation seems better. There's the BankID system and Swish in e.g., Sweden; the Netherlands have iDeal (which is great), .... When you have to use a credit card, most places support the additional verification by the provider (i.e., you get sent to the bank's/provider's page, where you verify the transaction directly).
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@Grunnen said in Banks in Germany:
@BernieTheBernie Sparkasse is terrible. They are exactly these banks that give you a lot of trouble with their old fashioned thinking.
"Sparkasse" is basically a franchise; there a huge differences in thinking depending on which one you're dealing with. Yes, I can confirm their IT is a crock of extremely smelly shit, but I'd bet the competition isn't significantly better.
I have good experiences with e.g. Sparda and N26.
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@LaoC said in Banks in Germany:
I can confirm their IT is a crock of extremely smelly shit, but I'd bet the competition isn't significantly better.
They're banks; only a fool would bet against you.
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@HardwareGeek said in Banks in Germany:
@LaoC said in Banks in Germany:
I can confirm their IT is a crock of extremely smelly shit, but I'd bet the competition isn't significantly better.
They're banks; only a fool would bet against you.
I’m pretty sure if you were to open up a brand new bank and build new infrastructure, by law you’d be required to buy an IBM mainframe with 1MB memory, hire a bunch of reincarnated COBOL programmers, and connect your terminals with 28 kilobaud dial up.
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@LaoC said in Banks in Germany:
At the very end I see “professional response” and all issues fixed by December 2016.
And you can still better have a convenient but insecure account than an inconvenient and insecure one.
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Meanwhile, also Sparkasse is trying to use electronic communication:
"Welcome to our first video conference. Can you all hear me?" - "Yes."
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@Deadfast I once was on a conference in Canada with some EUR, a wad of USD and a Maestro card. The plan was to exchange USD for CAD in the airport, but I forgot something in the plane, and by the time I was able to get it back the exchange booth was closed. I ended up locating one ATM on the premises that worked with Maestro and using it during the whole conference because the bank working hours coincided with the most interesting talks (all of them). No merchants accepted the Maestro, either.
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I'd like to thank everyone for your suggestions. My friend tells me she was really unfortunate to go to the Deutsche Bank first because it sounded like
$default_bankfor her. She'll try to move her account to Commerzbank or Sparkasse.
