Job Discussion Forums

[christopherjames67]

i leave for madrid in three weeks. wondering what to do about money? i have an account here in the us at bank of america. should i just use my atm while i'm in madrid for a better rate (i hear - is that right?) is it hard to set up a bank account in spain?

[michelle ashley]

Hello Christopher,

You mentioned you�re with EBC from your other posts, so I assume you went with them but anyway, here goes - If youre with them my advice will apply, if youre not , then ask your school if they can give you this type of banking service.

I�m not going to talk about EBC�s TEFL good deeds anymore, what I�ll tell you is their Caja Madrid banking good deeds.

You will find out that when you hit Madrid, it is very difficult to open a bank account, even if you spoke perfect Spanish! You see it�s got nothing to do with the language, I think it�s more to do with the banks in Spain trying to make sure "foreign accounts" are not used for laundering drug money! I know its hilarious after all haven�t they heard that the teaching profession isn�t exactly your 6 or 7 or 8 figure salary?

Anyway, EBC provides a free banking service to their students where you can open an account with Caja Madrid (one of the biggest Spanish banks) without leaving your home/ school, etc. Caja Madrid bring all the forms to the EBC school, you sign them, send a copy of your passport, sign a form saying youre not a resident of Spain (due to taxation reasons) and then you just wait for them to inform you the account is opened and your ATM card mailed to you.

This is how I opened my Caja Madrid account and believe you me it was great especially when I found out from other teachers who didn�t have this facility from their schools of the hassles they had to go thru.

They would go to different banks and the answers were the same, can�t open an account for a non resident, which by the way is totally untrue.

With this free banking service you don�t have to go to the banks, fall in lines, struggle with your Spanish or them with their English!

So don�t close you US bank accts, or anything like that but better, when you come to Spain, open your Spanish acct asap so you don�t get killed on commissions when you withdraw from your US acct. If your money is in euros, and you withdraw from the thousands of CM atm�s here, there will be no commission charged.

suerte!

michelle