N26 - another card option for Fuerteventura?

[GMT]

Apologies if perhaps I'm off-topic and not sure whether this has already been mentioned before but N26 may be another good option for paying DDs in Spain, providing you can get by with only three free withdrawals per month.

[McAdam]

As far as my experience here in the canarias has been...
You need a Spanish bank account (Iban starting with ES) for direct debits to be set up.
Everywhere I have DDs with, have only accepted my Spanish account.

I have been a N26 customer for about 5 years now, and I went from recommending them to anyone and everyone, to telling people to move elsewhere(lots of reasons, bad experiences, changes in policies, T&Cs).
I am N26 Black Customer number 124 - but I no longer use them as my primary account.

If you are moving funds from the UK, get a Revolut account, do the exchange within the app and send the EUR on to your Spanish account for DDs.

p.s. the N26 exchange stuff is a load of bull... they don't do anything, they just use a partner to send/receive Money. That partner used to be transferwise but Im not sure if its changed.

[Spitfire58]

As far as my experience here in the canarias has been...
You need a Spanish bank account (Iban starting with ES) for direct debits to be set up.
Everywhere I have DDs with, have only accepted my Spanish account.

I have been a N26 customer for about 5 years now, and I went from recommending them to anyone and everyone, to telling people to move elsewhere(lots of reasons, bad experiences, changes in policies, T&Cs).
I am N26 Black Customer number 124 - but I no longer use them as my primary account.

If you are moving funds from the UK, get a revolut account, do the exchange within the app and send the EUR on to your Spanish account for DDs.

p.s. the N26 exchange stuff is a load of bull... they don't do anything, they just use a partner to send/receive money. That partner used to be transferwise but Im not sure if its changed.

Everywhere I have DDs with, have only accepted my Spanish account.

I changed my Endesa DD to Revolut at the start of this year & has worked perfectly so far.
I think this insistence on a Spanish bank account is just a con because they want to keep it that way

[Johnrgby]

As far as my experience here in the canarias has been...
You need a Spanish bank account (Iban starting with ES) for direct debits to be set up.
Everywhere I have DDs with, have only accepted my Spanish account.

I have been a N26 customer for about 5 years now, and I went from recommending them to anyone and everyone, to telling people to move elsewhere(lots of reasons, bad experiences, changes in policies, T&Cs).
I am N26 Black Customer number 124 - but I no longer use them as my primary account.

If you are moving funds from the UK, get a revolut account, do the exchange within the app and send the EUR on to your Spanish account for DDs.

p.s. the N26 exchange stuff is a load of bull... they don't do anything, they just use a partner to send/receive money. That partner used to be transferwise but Im not sure if its changed.

Everywhere I have DDs with, have only accepted my Spanish account.

I changed my Endesa DD to Revolut at the start of this year & has worked perfectly so far.
I think this insistence on a Spanish bank account is just a con because they want to keep it that way

Never Ron? who would have thought that!

[McAdam]

Only accepting IBANs from certain countries is illegal under EU Law...
But due to the way the Banking system was set up here, I understand why they do it.

Even worse, some online stores only accept Spanish issued credit/debit cards... (I'm glaring at you https://tiendaselectron.com/)

The banks here seem to have their own network, with transactions going over a separate system to the remainder of the EU Banking network (same thing in Germany & the UK)
So to charge/transfer a "local" account has fewer costs than going outside. Some proof of this is that the majority of major Spanish banks are members of the EU Faster Payments system, offering instant transfers between members.
With Spanish banks, it's immediate to arrive, but takes a minimum of 1 day to leave Spain to another bank.

If Endesa recently changed their policy, then that is great news!

I know Movistar, Vodafone, Tax Office and some others only accepted Spanish accounts in the last few months of 2019.

So its not simply a case of racism, its a case of the Banking infrastructure was set up in a way that makes it more expensive to interact with other EU member IBANs...

Oh, and lets not get started talking about how ***** all the local banks are... If I could avoid having one I would. So I just stick to my favourite bank in the Netherlands for all my normal Banking stuffs, and use the Spanish one for the recurring bills I have.

[GMT]

Apologies if perhaps I'm off-topic and not sure whether this has already been mentioned before but N26 may be another good option for paying DDs in Spain, providing you can get by with only three free withdrawals per month.

No worries about an Off topic, I'll create another thread and move it there.

Are you using N26? How easy it is to set DD's with them? What's about Antigua Ayuntamiento? It would be nice to know about other mobile-bank option. Currently have only Revolut and Starling (no Euro DD's).

EDIT: N26 announced that they will leave the UK in the wake of Brexit - https://n26.com/en-gb I guess, no go for most Brits living in the UK(?). Not sure if handy for Ireland residents as they've Euro accounts already.

I'm not yet a N26 customer but I'm looking around for the option of having a Spanish account but not a Spanish bank. At present I'm with Bankia but I closed my personal acccount with them (they started charging me €5 a month from April and €28 for the use of the card) and we are in the process of closing the joint one too. N26 was recommended by my brother in law but I'm going to take on board McAdam's advice and investigate a bit more. Although I'm not happy at all about Spanish banks I may also look into BBVA, we see what I find out about them. Unfortunately, as McAdam mentioned, we need a Spanish account for the bills. As to moving Money between UK and Spain, we use Transferwise.

[GMT]

Are you a resident GMT? There should be some free options for residents at least what I was able to find out with a very little research a couple of years ago.

If not, Starling or Revolut for now and hope the EU will push Spanish banks a bit harder to implement the non Spanish payments.

I am Spanish resident, since June last year.