Opening a bank account may have been trivial, but today I encountered the much more difficult problem of actually transferring money into my new account. My main choices seem to be ludicrously slow or ludicrously expensive.
I had hoped to be able to just write myself a cheque frim my UK account and deposit it in my Estonian one. Unfortunately I was informed that this would take two to three weeks to clear! I considered just withdrawing cash via an ATM and depositing that, but my UK bank will limit how much I can withdraw per day, charge me 1.5% (min £1.75) per withdrawal, and also sneakily take an extra 2.75% on the exchange rate (which most people never notice). So it seems my only sensible option is a SWIFT transfer, and its £21 fee!
I’m probably going to have to transfer money quite regularly, so I really hope there’s another method that I’m just being too stupid to think of …
Today I opened an Estonian bank account. This was a remarkably trivial process. I’ve had to open a variety of bank accounts in the UK over the last 20 years for both personal and business use, and every time the process has been more and more complex. I think the current requirements include 3 utility bills, 2 samples of DNA, and original birth certificates from at least 5 grandparents.
Here, on the other hand, all I needed was my passport. I didn’t even need to provide anything showing my address, which is good as I don’t actually have anything yet. The most difficult question was what my daily and weekly limits should be for ATM withdrawals! I had to fill in one form with general information, sign one document to get a debit card, and another to get internet banking, and I was done in less than 10 minutes. My account was set-up straight away, the internet banking was working as soon as I arrived back home, and my debit card should be ready for pick-up on Friday. I even got an apology for the fact that the slip of paper detailing my initial online password was in Estonian! (Everything else they gave me was in Estonian, Russian and English).
The on-line account has quite a nice login feature as well. I have a username and password both of which I choose myself (they gave me an initial password, but it forced me to change this on first login), and then each time I try to log in I have to give an extra six digit number from a little credit card sized “code card” that lists 30 different codes. It’s a much lower-tech version of those electronic SecureID devices and but still provides quite a good level of security and is much nicer than those pseudo-security questions (“mother’s maiden name”) etc that are so prevalent in the UK now.
I’m impressed as to how smooth and painless this entire process was. At least several UK bank staff have blamed “EU regulations” when I’ve commented on how ludicrous their processes have become, but presumably Estonia has to follow the same directives. It seems it would have been just as easy to get a Sterling account here as one in local currency, and there seems to be no requirement to be resident locally, so perhaps someone should try doing all their UK banking through an Estonian bank to see what happens…
When I was here in October, I discovered the delight that is Holly Dolly. Today I was impressed to discover that it is still the most requested song on at least one of the various TV music channels I have. Everyone I played this to back in NI hated it, but that’s mostly because they’re all philistines who can only hear the annoying crazy frog eurobeat.
None of them had enountered the Loituma Girl meme so they couldn’t even appreciate it on that level (cf. Cognoscenti vs. Intelligentsia). Most, however, have quite liked Loituma’s version of Ievan Polkka when I’ve introduced them to it. Estonian is fairly close to Finnish so maybe once I’ve been here a lot longer I’ll actually be able to sing along…
