Opening a Polish Bank Account by a foreigner in Poland. Recommendations.

I opened an account with ING, they only wanted to se my passport and my proof of address

Yes, agree with the responses below, but in opinion after using several banks, would recommend Citibank Handlowy. It is the best of the bunch with a very good online banking. This is especially the case if you don't speak Polish. The have a very good English speaking phone banking system, with people who speak good English.

The best way is to compare all accounts.
comparison of personal accounts: najlepszeporownanie.pl/kalkulator-wyszukiwarka/konta-osobiste.php
you can compare savings accounts too: najlepszeporownanie.pl/kalkulator-wyszukiwarka/konta-oszczednosciowe.p hp

This is not an easy choice ;)

LOL, when I walked into my bank to open my account, I was amused that Chuck Norris is their celebrity spokesperson. He's in their advertising, on their website and their information brochures.

Now I CHUCKle when I see the ads and find a bright spot when they cross my mind.

Merged: Opening a bank account in Poland

Hi all, im moving from Scotland to work in Warsaw and need to open a bank account, i will need to transfer money to a UK account every month, not too worried about the cost its more I need something that's quick as i still need to pay my mortgage etc in UK so need to get the money transferred to cover everything

Any suggestion to which bank i should use?

Cheers
Al

Alior would be my choice.

Also, get yourself a Euro account set up in the UK so you can make SEPA transfers for free. You'll probably want to agree with the UK bank that they give you a better exchange rate than the one they list when you transfer money from your Euro account to your Sterling account (and explain to them that either they can agree to accept a rate which means they don't lose any money or they can lose you as a customer, it's entirely their choice).

I cant grasp the idea of opening the Euro account, anywhere.
Presumably you will be paid in Zloty in Poland but need Sterling for the UK, where do the Euros come into play?

SEPA transfers. You can get very close to the interbank rate when exchanging PLN for EUR (you won't with GBP), and likewise when transferring EUR to GBP. It's much harder to get good deals on PLN/GBP transfers, at least in my experience.

Anyone reading this and wanting to exchange a significant amount of money from EUR to PLN or vice versa should know that you can get within 1gr of the interbank rate if you exchange at least 25k EUR. Best I've seen was 0.75gr, but there was room to negotiate on that if the amounts were higher and regular. All available from your local friendly bank.

My local kantor is currently offering 4.10 and 4.12 on the Euro, for purchases/sales of EUR 5 and up.

Which bank is that with?

Any real bank (not a dodgy private one like Amber Gold was) will have special departments that deal with such exchanges. Worth pointing out that they keep it somewhat of a secret, probably so that the ordinary people don't question why they're charging a huge spread on transfers.

Usual trick is to tell them that you want to withdraw the cash in EUR for the explicit purpose of taking to the kantor and to return in PLN - they normally get quite scared at the thought of having to produce a significant amount in EUR and instead offer their in-house exchange services. It's an interesting fact of Polish banks that they don't seem to carry much physical cash on a day to day basis.

"SEPA transfers. You can get very close to the interbank rate when exchanging PLN for EUR (you won't with GBP), and likewise when transferring EUR to GBP. It's much harder to get good deals on PLN/GBP transfers, at least in my experience."

Thanks for the explanation. I have just tried via the internet to do a couple of mock transfers as you suggested, aside from any transfer charges there wasn't much difference which surprised me TBH. Its the bank charges that would concern me especiallly as neither country actually has Euros as its currency, also like you suggested you need to perhaps do this in person rather than via internet banking.

We have PLN and GBP accounts with ING Bank Poland and over the next 6-8 weeks need to transfer about £200k into PLN. Any suggestions would be welcome.

The bank give rediculous exchange rates so we normally take money from our Polish GBP account and pop down the road to the kantor and return 10 minutes later with a fistfull of Zloty, the biggest pain is we can only take out £10k at a time and they also require 24 hours notice per transaction.

Use an Fx company like currencies direct, their spreads are relatively tight, for large amounts less than 5bps. The other main one I can think of is XE.com, but I seem to recall they charge fees or have wider spreads (can't remember exactly, but I remember deciding they weren't as good as Currencies Direct for some reason).

Thanks-that is what I was going to do but I was just interested in the SEPA transfers mentioned above, anything that saves a few bob doesn't hurt eh!

I know this was answered before a couple years ago, but I'm going to ask again just incase anything has changed.

Is it still not possible with any of the polish banks to setup an account online while not currently being in poland (i do have a polish address).

Merged: Free of charge bank account in Poland?

Hello

Does anyone know if there is a free of charge bank account with any of the Polish banks? I have a totally free account with DKB in Germany and it doesn't require any certain income which is great as I don't use it hugely.

We have a "proper" bank account with Citibank and it's great but I would ideally like a separate bank account with a different bank as Citi's fee structure is a little complicated.... won't bore you with the details.

The account doesn't need to be fancy... it can be internet-only... the only thing it would probably need is a internet banking.

Thanks in advance.
J

My ING account comes pretty close - it's only required to use the debit card for 100PLN a month in order to get free banking.

I understand that the virtual bank Mbank has free bank accounts

rlscott63: only if you return their debit card.

So, you mean to say u're below 26?

Thank you for the replies so far...

I tried to work out the Mbank fees and as far as I understand you have to also use their card with a minimum amount per month or receive a minimum amount per month. Howerver I won't be using this account regularly and only little money will go in and out (The main purpose of the account being kind of pocket money account and if I want to buy presents and my other half should not see where I buy stuff) :-)

Nope, normal ING Direct account. Unless I'm on an old account that isn't available anymore...


Go with ING - it's by far the best offer. I see you have to use your card for 200zl, not 100zl a month - but still, that's not very much :)

Do you know what's the charge if I don't use it for that?

7zl.

Hmpf.... that's a no go then. I will maybe pay in 50 PLN per month and only withdraw/pay with it every 3-6 months.

That's a shame. Ah well. Thanks guys.

Sounds a lot of hassle just to save a few zlotych in charges.

I appreciate that it might not make a lot of sense to you. But my husband and I have a joint account and each business accounts.

We used to both have a free sole account in the UK which was really nice and handy. But with Citibank you don't get an extra debit card for this sole account and my husband's sole account also gets charged if he doesn't deposit 2000PLN per month. So that defeats the idea of this.

But not to worry. I was just wondering if there was anything like this available in Poland.

I haven't heard of anything like that, but PKO BP have very low charges

Umm! it sounds good.. Do u know if they have website in English or something?

I think you should go for Allior. I've been with PKO Bank and they charge you if you withdraw any money from any other cash machines other than thiers.

Allior has its site in English as well and so far I don't think ive been paying any sort of fee.