Setting up a bank account

Not a very exciting topic, but could be of some interest to anyone else contemplating a move to Sweden from outside of Europe.  You of course need to setup a bank account here in Sweden.  Earlier I mentioned that Sweden has pretty much moved past the need for checks, everything is electronic, so I had to have an account for my paychecks to go to.

This was another barrier to not having my personnummer yet.  You are not supposed to be able to get an account without one.  You can see the chicken and the egg like scenario that you end up in here.  However, they can setup a temporary account without the personnummer, the bankers are just not that well versed in it.

Eva, our office manager took me down to the local Nordea bank.  My company does our banking with Nordea and everyone speaks pretty highly of them, so it seemed like it would work out fine.  We were at the bank forever, and it took all 3 bankers at the counter working on it to figure out how to open an account for me.  They were about to give up about 3 separate times, but we kept at them and they finally figured it out.

There are a couple of restrictions, I cannot have a debit card or any online banking access.  So for the time being I am living completely on cash which is a little weird (I spent 9 000 Swedish Kronors today at IKEA and people looked at me like I was crazy with all that cash).  I also tried to withdraw a lot of money today but they have a daily limit on my temporary account (or maybe they have that limit on all accounts I'm not sure, the banker seemed quite concerned over my personal safety by giving me a lot of cash).  I couldn't get enough cash for everything that I need with paying rent for October and outfitting the house with everything I need for about 3 months of living.  Eva was nice enough to pay my rent for me (back to not having any online banking yet, that is the only way I can pay my rent), and I will get more cash out tomorrow to give to her.  Without people around willing to help you out, things could be a lot more difficult here.

Once I have my personnummer, they will convert my account into a normal one and give me a debit card and online access and then I will be all setup.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh my goodness, hope you get that personnummer real soon; wow, what a time of it you are having. Be careful with all of that cash. Sorry, but I had to chuckle at all of this. Aunt Gin

dema odyssey said...

I really hope that you have your personnummer soon, I've been in that situation even in a very short time. Yeah, living in Sweden without personnummer like living without any identity. Good luck for your personnummer application. Regards from Stockholm

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