Bankia account charges

Any of you that are Bankia account holders or in a similat situation that may be able to help please. The current stipulation is that I must deposit a minimum of €700 each month into my account to get free banking. Otherwise there seems to be a monthly service charge of €14. Extortionate in my opinion but there it is.
As we do not live in Spain permanently yet, we never have left huge amounts of money in there as we never really need to.
My question is "if We were to deposit lets say €700 over the course of one calendar month, would we get that month free of the €14 charge or does it have to be a regular thing done via a direct debit every month to even consider giving us free banking?"
We cant justify putting €700 each month in there just now but even the odd month without this horrendous charge would be a bonus. TIA

I don't think you need to keep it in your account all the time. Deposit it on a weekday early on in the month, and then withdraw it on a weekday towards the end of the month. You could set up a standing order to do this, especially if you have another online euro account like Transferwise.
Just a thought.

Bankia started charging 6 euro per month regardless of how much you have on deposit or pay in each month. They started that about April time last year. They charge 14 euro a month if you pay less than the 700 euro a month in and that has to be every month, not just a casual one off.

Despite them saying they wouldn't make any charges if you paid in a regular sum, when the government made them offer a "basic" account at no more than 6 euro a month they started charging everyone that.

Thank you for the information. So in essence, all we would save each month by putting €700 in would be €8 ?

Elpando wrote:Any of you that are Bankia account holders or in a similat situation that may be able to help please. The current stipulation is that I must deposit a minimum of €700 each month into my account to get free banking. Otherwise there seems to be a monthly service charge of €14. Extortionate in my opinion but there it is.
As we do not live in Spain permanently yet, we never have left huge amounts of money in there as we never really need to.
My question is "if We were to deposit lets say €700 over the course of one calendar month, would we get that month free of the €14 charge or does it have to be a regular thing done via a direct debit every month to even consider giving us free banking?"
We cant justify putting €700 each month in there just now but even the odd month without this horrendous charge would be a bonus. TIA

Open up another account, put €750 in it on the 5th, set up a standing order to pay €700 into your other account on the 20th then set up a standing order on the 5th to put €700 back to your first account. As far as two banks are concerned €700 is being paid into the account every month. It’s just needs you to have €750 spare...

Philipb1407 wrote:

Elpando wrote:Any of you that are Bankia account holders or in a similat situation that may be able to help please. The current stipulation is that I must deposit a minimum of €700 each month into my account to get free banking. Otherwise there seems to be a monthly service charge of €14. Extortionate in my opinion but there it is.
As we do not live in Spain permanently yet, we never have left huge amounts of money in there as we never really need to.
My question is "if We were to deposit lets say €700 over the course of one calendar month, would we get that month free of the €14 charge or does it have to be a regular thing done via a direct debit every month to even consider giving us free banking?"
We cant justify putting €700 each month in there just now but even the odd month without this horrendous charge would be a bonus. TIA

Open up another account, put €750 in it on the 5th, set up a standing order to pay €700 into your other account on the 20th then set up a standing order on the 5th to put €700 back to your first account. As far as two banks are concerned €700 is being paid into the account every month. It’s just needs you to have €750 spare...

And get charge 6 euro a month for each account. Not much of a saving.

I think JPEG said you cannot have 2 bank accounts in Spain.

Chrisdee wrote:I think JPEG said you cannot have 2 bank accounts in Spain.

You can have 2 bank accounts in Spain. You can only have one of the "basic" accounts.
And you can't open one of those if you have another account.

They get you every way.

We have a joint account but maybe best to have one each and I transfer 750 into my husbands on 5th abnd he transfers the same to me on 12th? But would that be classed as income on your tax return?

We have opened an N26 account with our Spanish address and closed the Sabadell account. Transferred direct debits to N26. So far so good and no bank charges.