Bank Accounts

It was a successful day because I finally got a bank account.

The other day, when I asked the principal at my school for a recommendation of a bank, she told me to wait and made reference to Germans having moral issues with choosing their bank. I don't even want to state what bank I chose on this blog for fear that, later, it might come back to haunt me.

This morning, after Damian equipped me with some important phrases ("I don't speak German. I'm sorry. Do you speak English?"), I went bank shopping.  When I entered the first bank and got to the point of wanting to open a bank account, the bank associate, in broken English, told me I would have to make an appointment. So I made an appointment for the following afternoon. Then I proceeded to talk with the guy in detail about all of my options, he took a copy of my passport, and he told me it would be a minimum of $5/month for the account.  Two things stood out to me from this conversation: 1. After spending so much time with me, why can't this guy just take the next three minutes to establish the account? Why can't he make an official, "appointment to open an account" for now or 10 minutes from now? I'll just walk out the door, stroll through the bookstore next door and come back in 10 minutes.  2. Are you seriously charging me to keep a bank account? I'm giving you my money so that you can go invest it somewhere and make money from that money. Why would you charge me for that?

A similar situation happened at the next bank I went to except this time the monthly charge was equivalent to $6.50/month.

Luckily for some regimented Germans and their appointments, I didn't open the bank accounts with those banks because I found a better deal...

Later in the day (after the German siesta) I ventured out and stopped at another bank (there are A LOT here).  This time, they setup a FREE account within 10 minutes - no appointments and no fees! Win for Katie! I was hoping for an interest-bearing account, but that probably would've been asking too much.