Talk Quesada forum

Hi everyone,

I was looking at our Caixa bank app and since we opened the account less than 12 months ago, they have taken almost €200 in fees. This is crazy as far as I am concerned. We were told that we needed a Spanish bank account to pay for utilities like Iberdrola etc. Some WEB searching has suggested that many people are using euro iban numbers (Not UK account) to pay for Spanish utilities and they are accepted the same as if they were from a Spanish bank. People from Germany, Belgium, Ireland etc say they are doing this with no issues.

Anyone with a euro account have any experience with Spanish banks refusing this or otherwise?

Cheers.

John.

A lot are opening Wise accounts to get around this

They are not allowed to refuse Wise account on D/D although some may try!

Lots of previous posts on this. Put Wise in the search box or just scroll down to Similar Topics where there is a lot of discussion.

Chrisdee wrote:A lot are opening Wise accounts to get around this

Cheers Chrisdee. Thanks for reply.

Lockey57 wrote:They are not allowed to refuse Wise account on D/D although some may try!

Thanks for post Lockey57. Cheers. John.

marcliff wrote:Lots of previous posts on this. Put Wise in the search box or just scroll down to Similar Topics where there is a lot of discussion.

Thanks Marcliff. I will do as you suggest.

Cheers.

John.

John - some "utility" companies (in my case it was Hidraqua and VegaFibra) will say they can't accept payments from Wise, due to the Wise accounts having a non-Spanish (Belgian) IBAN.

However - they are not telling the truth, and by refusing a Belgian IBAN, they are breaking SEPA regulations.

A quick email pointing that out was enough to have my Wise account details accepted within minutes.

The banks (as banks do) are preying on those who believe a bank is a genuinely fair organisation who are doing the best for their customers.

As someone who worked for one of the UK's "big 4" banks for 30+ years and saw more corruption, lies and poor management than I could ever have imagined, I can assure you that the banks are purely profit-making entities who don't give two hoots about their customers.

I also worked as a project manager at the Milton Keynes campus of a certain Spanish-owned bank for a while. The less said about THEIR operations, the better!

Ditch the greedy bank (it's very easy to do), and grab yourself a Wise account or similar.

I got a Wise account after closing my Caixta bank account because of their extortionate charges and terrible customer service. I set up direct debits with Iberdrola, Hydragua, Vega Fibre, Telecable, and our Community company and Suma all very easily either on line or just by email.
None of them refused or queried that the IBAN number was from Belgium.
They also give you interest every month on money in the account!

I would second sunworshipper, for ease of setting up and reliability. I have a direct debit monthly from my UK bank to my Wise Euro account and it works perfectly. Cost, a few pence converting from sterling to Euro. Wise messages to confirm all payments and receipts on mu account.