Santander, Barclay, Hanseatic, Targo, DKB, Comdirect, ING-Diba, Consors, Wüstenrot, Noris, and N26 require that you have at least 600€ each month of movement via the bank account, or at least 1200€/year via the card.
I’ve tried getting a card from all of them. All of them refused, as I’d not use them enough.
> If yours does not
I’m a customer at 2 major national german banks (postbank and commerzbank), and a local one, none of them (or their subsidiaries, such as comdirect) offer this.
I just want a credit card, I’ll use it at most once a year, for at most 100 bucks. That is not available from any bank.
The only offer that exists even similar in cost is the old MyWirecard offer, and they closed my account due to not using it enough.
Postbank has a Visa or MasterCard for 29€ yearly. Comdirect has a free Visa Debit card. I have it and have not used that account for over two years now apart from downloading the statements. Nothing happened so far and I haven't paid anything.
In your case the easiest solution would probably to order the British prepaid card from Revolut which is available for a one-time 8€ fee and I don't think they refuse anybody. Just note that they are not regulated as a bank but as electronic money so I wouldn't leave large sums of money for a long time on the card (but that's not something you want to do anyway).
My credit report is perfect, and I’ve had no issues with that – but the problem is that I, as student, currently have zero income, and zero spending.
> Comdirect has a free Visa Debit card
Only in combination with the Girokonto, which is only provided if you have any monthly income. Same with Hanseatic. Check their AGB, or call them.
> Postbank has a Visa or MasterCard for 29€ yearly
Same story with this, I’m a customer at Postbank, have a Sparbuch in the 5 digits, but I can’t get a free Visa or MasterCard until I’ve > 670€/month income, and I won’t pay a single cent for a credit card.
> In your case the easiest solution would probably to order the British prepaid card from Revolut which is available for a one-time 8€ fee and I don't think they refuse anybody. Just note that they are not regulated as a bank but as electronic money so I wouldn't leave large sums of money for a long time on the card (but that's not something you want to do anyway).
I’ve had one with them, too, they closed the account because it wasn’t used often enough.
Only if you ignore the free credit cards that are independent of a current account from Advanzia, Santander Consumer, Barclaycard, Hanseatic, Payback, Targobank, ICS, and some I forgot.
Then there are also a lot of unconditionally free current accounts that offer a card (credit or debit) that can be used to pay that subscription, such as those from DKB, Comdirect, ING-Diba, Consorsbank, Wüstenrot, Norisbank, Fidor, N26, and so on.
Those offers are not hard to find, some of them are available for over a decade or more now. Even pretty much every consumer bank you can name in Germany has such a card on offer for less than 40€ yearly. That includes small cooperative banks. If yours does not you should consider switching (or opening a second account), competition is fierce.