There's also money orders.
If you give me a $20 bill, I can immediately exchange it for a case of beer at the bodega with no extra steps. If you give me a money order for $20, I need to find someone who is willing and/or able to convert that money order into a $20 bill before I can buy my beer.
Not in the Netherlands. Any adult (18 or older) resident of the EU has the right to a bank account, by law.
> an interesting loop you can get into is that you need to pay a utility bill in order to get a bank account, yet you can't pay a utility bill without a bank account.
Why would you need to pay a utility bill to get a bank account? Those two things are completely unrelated. All you need is a valid ID (either ID card, passport or drivers license) and you are required to have that anyway.
A passport is good, but you should also be aware that not everyone has a passport or drivers license. (for example: I didn't when I got my first bank account).
My first bank account was a deal my mother made with the bank where she acted as guarantor.
having a right to a thing is not the same as actually getting it; there is a lot of anti-fraud legislation that exists and must be complied with. The bank isn't just going to fully open an account with nothing but an ID. I can say that with absolute confidence after working in financial services (albeit briefly).
Many banks (Santander, HSBC just two I checked) have entry points for people who are genuinely homeless. And accepted ID can include simple government things like council tax or a driver's license, but also just a letter from your employer or school. Again these are soft checks.
In some cases, you can get basically locked out of all essential services, including bank account closures, not being able to make payments (especially now with these laws), etc.
Real fun!
I've never had to register my address anywhere unless I have a drivers license.
You think Europe would have learned a thing or two from WW2 and what was going down on the continent. I guess some behaviors are just too culturally ingrained.
You mean, you have to be ready to be punished for breaqking shitty laws just to point to their shittiness.
Sure, but in my case nothing happened, so, meh?
Registering the address will get you the tax number, which is necessary to be paid.
The health insurance (also mandatory when working) would need a registered address.
I did have a tax number, since I got paid and presumably paid taxes.
I never went anywhere just to register my address though. That sounds so insane to me.
Still a crappy system.
How would you handle those things without the government knowing your address?
Then why is it only EU countries and authoritarian governments that do it?
> They need to know your address for a lot of things.
And when those things come up, they can ask your address. But requiring people to register in general is a step too far.
>> And when those things come up, they can ask your address.
How would they do that if they don't have your address? For example: a decent amount of elderly don't use the internet, how would they be contacted?
If you need to deal with taxes, you submit your address to the tax agency.
If you need to deal with license stuff, you deal with the equivalent of the DMV.
And so on.
There's no need to just file your address with the government 'in general'.
> a decent amount of elderly don't use the internet, how would they be contacted?
Internet is kind of irrelevant. Most government agencies don't use the internet to contact people unless they specifically opt in and the agency offers that.
They would use your last known address, or wait for you to contact them.
I need to file taxes but no one sends me a reminder. My town asks me to verify my address once a year but nothing (other than possibly being eventually removed from voting rolls) happens if I don't. Driver's license and registration are supposed to be your current address but again I'm not sure anything especially happens if they aren't. No one sends me anything to remind me to get my inspection updated.
So I have a supposedly current address on file with various government agencies but AFAIK there is absolutely no rule that, if I pick up and move I have to tell anyone. I do need to file taxes correctly although, as I wrote elsewhere, if I don't have a permanent address that's simultaneously perfectly legal and something of an edge case.
Yes, but you don’t need a bill for that, you can just get it from the municipality where you are registered.
> A passport is good, but you should also be aware that not everyone has a passport or drivers license.
Anyone age 14 and up is required by law to be able to show an ID when asked. So yeah, everyone here has an ID.
> My first bank account was a deal my mother made with the bank where she acted as guarantor.
The rules for children are different. Once you turn 18 you need to ID yourself to the bank. If you don’t do this your account will be blocked. You will be informed of this shortly before you turn 18.
> having a right to a thing is not the same as actually getting it; there is a lot of anti-fraud legislation that exists and must be complied with. The bank isn't just going to fully open an account with nothing but an ID
You have a right to a basic account, not necessarily full service. You can send/receive money and get a debit card. Anything else, credit cards, loans, etc. are of course not included.
And sure, if you’ve been convicted of fraud or anything like that, that’s an exception.
I don't know how it is in Sweden or in the Netherlands, but here in France, I needed a bill or some other "proof of address" to register to vote with the town hall. I had been living in the same apartment for years, and they never seemed to require any proof before sending me the papers asking for the local taxes.
Yeah, that's not how it works in all European countries. Which can get really "interesting" in some cases, believe me (I've lived through that).
I've also been requested proof of employment, which is also interesting when you're unemployed. In one of the countries, they said I can just give them proof of unemployment benefits... which I don't have, because I left my job willingly.
And then they told me: "well, in that case you can get proof of unemployment from the municipality". Except... that I'm not even living in your damn country and the municipality where I live doesn't even know whether I'm working or not (why would they?!).
But this does not even compare to all the problems I've had when I've not been living in the same place stably for an extended period of time. It has been an absolute hell in some cases, because institutions (governments, banks, lawyers, etc) simply do not account for this possibility. They all assume that you have a stable address of residence.
In some countries you can't even receive some types of registered mail unless it is addressed exactly to where you are staying at that moment.
> You have a right to a basic account, not necessarily full service.
I don't think that's how it works. The governments have created a legal requirement for banks to provide minimum banking services, yes. But banks still have to comply with many other very strict requirements and customers may not be able to fulfill them, which prevents them from opening bank accounts.
I haven't personally had this issue but I know someone who did in the US. No permanent address; they were doing a lot of traveling.
Nothing wrong/illegal about that. But, by the books, it means they can't get a driver's license and other important documents. So you basically have to lie. Either use a third-party digital nomad service (which I understand some states may flag) or find a trustworthy friend or relative to "live" with (who will forward important mail to you and vouch for you if needed--which is what they did). There are still potential issues with respect to things like jury duty but these can mostly work although they're almost certainly at least marginally fraudulent.
In some countries you can't even receive some types of registered mail unless it is addressed exactly to where you are staying at that moment.
You can't "just" get it if you don't have a fixed address, or if the address isn't eligible for registration (the rules for that are rather strict).
Netherlands is one if the hardest countries if you end up in an "exceptional" situation; you can work around "proof of address" (not always, but frequently), but it's much harder to work around the municipal registration.
Yes, there are rules for exceptions (e.g. "briefadres") and there's stuff like https://www.basisbankrekening.nl – but in reality people are so strict with this that it might as well not exist for vast swaths of people.
If you've never been in an exceptional situation you think it's easy and works grand, and it does, right up to the point it doesn't, at which point you're pretty fucked. People are unaware because they've never experienced it, but it's really awful.
Last year it took me 5 months and a lot of proverbial "banging fist on the table" to get a bank account in the Netherlands. It took me about 2 weeks in Ireland. Just sayin'
- Few people are willing to rent to you if you don't have a Dutch bank account and current registration.
- You can't get registration without a place to rent that qualifies (and many places don't).
I was earning €90k/year at the time; it wasn't a money issue.
For immigrants or foreign workers a process of getting EU residence status may take months and sometimes require an EU bank account, so it may become an infinite loop. We have to take worst renting deals in order to get required papers, for example.
If you have a way to prove your ID(which basically everyone do in Norway) then bank accounts are very accessible and free. I don't know how many banks I have accounts at, but it's more than 15, and all you need is your ID and a couple of minutes to create an account.
However, if I'm not from Norway/Sweden/Denmark then I'm not in that system yet.
A bank checking your credit score just because you want to create an account would be a huge invasion of privacy.
A bank checking your credit score just because you want to create an account would be a huge invasion of privacy.
There is no reason for the bank to check your credit score if you're only using your own money.
After going through the process of moving to Norway, I can say that unfortunately things are not that straightforward for foreigners. Even after getting your work permit, getting a personnummer can take up to several months after moving, not to mention getting an appointment with UDI can also take up to several months (in the meantime you'll feel like a lesser member of society, basic things like getting a library card are not accessible without it). After all there's a reason why this kind of service exist https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mpr_sua-techfasttrack-oslo-ac...
> then bank accounts are very accessible and free. I don't know how many banks I have accounts at, but it's more than 15, and all you need is your ID and a couple of minutes to create an account.
This only works when you already have a BankID. It takes at least 1 month to open your first account. Granted after that, everything is smooth, but oh boy how much time does it take.
I came here to say something similar. We moved to the Netherlands in 2014 from the US and it was three or four months before our immigration stuff was far enough along that we could open a local bank account with an IBAN and get a chip and pin card (at the time, virtually no US banks would give you chip and pin cards). My partner couldn't even get paid during that time until she had a bank account. We lived off withdrawing cash from my US account at ATMs. That included paying our rent (we were lucky that our landlord, who lived in a different city, was OK with us just paying cash to their relative who lived nearby).
1) Disallowing a third-party in every single transaction you make, especially as
1a) Inflation means 3k now might be quite low in 20 years
1b) Banks themselves have been shown to be scummy
1c) Banks are a rare institution to allow outsiders into.
2) Bank accounts themselves are not actually all that accessible; it's quite common for people to be ineligible for a bank account under random (but common) circumstances. -- an interesting loop you can get into is that you need to pay a utility bill in order to get a bank account, yet you can't pay a utility bill without a bank account.
3) Cash is the only fiat currency that actually exists, I know it's trendy to think that lines in a database are meaningful- but if you have physical cash you know what it's worth and it can't be hacked or seized. (though a good counterpoint is of course that you can be robbed or it can get destroyed).
I live in Sweden and we're very far down the path of "cash is dead" - there's a considerable number of stores and fast food joints that do not even accept cash. However, when I moved to this country I couldn't open a bank account and without people accepting cash at that time I would have paid exorbitant fees on each transaction.
So with that in mind I'm not in favour of restricting cash, I'm aware of the drawbacks of large fiat currency transactions; but It gives the central banks even more power than they currently have (which is a lot, which you'd know if you were on the wrong side of a policy or get into one of their loops) and we're not sure that they are going to continue to be fair into the future.
Note: you cannot hold a bank account with the central bank that actually issues currency. You are voting for a middle-man.