American Banks in Finland

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Mark I.
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Re: Banks

Post by Mark I. » Fri Dec 15, 2006 4:44 pm

sinikala wrote: AFAIK "Otto" cash machines only give a choice of languages if you use a foreign card, if you have a Finnish issued card e.g. Nordea, there is no choice of language, not even Swedish.
Hence the nickname Evil Otto. :twisted:



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Hank W.
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Post by Hank W. » Fri Dec 15, 2006 5:05 pm

I am not sure if it can be made speak English, but Otto speaks Swedish if you are 'bättrefolk' in the bank database. Someone posted about this once...
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Post by enk » Fri Dec 15, 2006 9:13 pm

Hank W. wrote:I am not sure if it can be made speak English, but Otto speaks Swedish if you are 'bättrefolk' in the bank database. Someone posted about this once...
Well, if you're sämre folk, you probably don't have enough money
in your account to care what language the interface is in ;)

-enk

madfinland
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Post by madfinland » Fri Dec 15, 2006 9:41 pm

i recently changed my bank card (nordea) from the most basic one (the white one which was allowing me to only withdraw) to visa electron and automatically otto service is offered me in english.I don't know if it was made by the employee which gave to sign the form in english for the new card or something else.
Paolo

zam
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Post by zam » Sat Dec 16, 2006 2:27 pm

Maybe they have developed the services? Couple of years ago I asked from Automatia who runs the Otto. ATMs why they do not work in English with a Finnish card. Then the answer was that as the service messages that come from the bank are in Finnish or Swedish, there wouldn't be much use of it, because then the messages would be in mixed language:

Instead of
"Tapahtuma keskeytynyt: Tilillä ei katetta "
you would get
"Transaction interrupted: Tilillä ei katetta"
So, maybe it works now and you can actually get
"Transaction interrupted: No balance on the account "

jackal
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Post by jackal » Tue Dec 19, 2006 4:54 pm

My Nordea card must have something in it that allows me to noticed as an English speaker or its those damn super-powers back again!
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Karhunkoski
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Re: American Banks in Finland

Post by Karhunkoski » Mon Nov 24, 2008 9:15 am

Goldie wrote:Well, I'm an American. And to be honest, I would feel more “at ease” with my money in an American bank vice a Finnish bank.
Goldie wrote:sinikala wrote:

Why would you expect English speaking tellers & phone reps? That's not to say you won't get them, but this is Finland, the language here is Finnish.

(I understand this is Finland, and that the language is Finnish. I also understand that in a lot of service industries (banking, tourism, airlines, etc.) English is a requirement for employement.)

Can you recommend a US bank that has branches through out the western World?

(Citibank)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7745168.stm
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sinikala
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Re: American Banks in Finland

Post by sinikala » Mon Nov 24, 2008 3:15 pm

To clarify the above garbled quote, I was not recommending Citibank!!!

Here's my original post from way back when...
sinikala wrote:
Goldie wrote:
sinikala wrote:Can you recommend a US bank that has branches through out the western World?
Citibank
So you've answered your own question, simply go to Citibank and open your account. :D
So off you trundle to
http://www.citibank.com/us/d.htm
go to the bottom left of the page "select a country" and select Finland... except you can't... so that would indicate that they don't have branches throughout the western world. :roll:
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flyingyellowpig
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Re: American Banks in Finland

Post by flyingyellowpig » Tue Nov 25, 2008 12:22 pm

I have had account on all those for the past 10 years:Ålands Bank(good,but quit limited),Nordea(pricey services),OP (a pain the ass customer service).Now I have account with OP and Noaa Säästöpankki.I think Säästöpankki it's quit OK bank with a good customer service,they don't have many branches around Finland yet but they do have some kind of agreements with other savings banks around Finland.
The problem what I have with OP is that they seem to be very unhelpful to me.But anyway my wife has an account there since she was a child,so we have a loan together in the same bank.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ba ... ings_banks

Goldie if you want a bank that has more branches around the world ,I think it will be Satander group or Deustche Bank
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grupo_Santander
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Bank
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Iseult
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Re: Banks

Post by Iseult » Thu Nov 27, 2008 1:42 am

sinikala wrote:
jackal wrote:I find Nordea ok, online banking is English, the counter people have spoken only english to me at my branch and the Otto`s have english on them for drawing money...its good or even better than I expected, so I have to give them full marks!
AFAIK "Otto" cash machines only give a choice of languages if you use a foreign card, if you have a Finnish issued card e.g. Nordea, there is no choice of language, not even Swedish.

Someone may have already said this.
My Australian fiancé gets English options automatically when he pops in his Nordea card. Perhaps they've changed this recently?
Finland -> Australia -> Finland -> Canada -> Finland -> the UK -> Finland

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Karhunkoski
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Re: Banks

Post by Karhunkoski » Thu Nov 27, 2008 5:48 am

Iseult wrote:My Australian fiancé gets English options automatically when he pops in his Nordea card. Perhaps they've changed this recently?
Yes, this is still possible.
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mrshourula
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Re: American Banks in Finland

Post by mrshourula » Thu Nov 27, 2008 7:02 am

These days I think you might be better off with your money in a Finnish bank

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/11/ ... -Banks.php

I know an American living in Tampere :evil: who banks with Nordea and is having no problems (it's a student account and no complex transactions) and there are English-speaking tellers available.


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