Opening an account before moving?

[lenipoika]

I am basing this on my own experience about a month ago, where I walked into a Nordea bank and gave them my passport (which is not Finnish) and they set me up with a an account that very day based on the passport number of the foreign passport. Took maybe 40 mins all up, including the wait. That is the only ID they asked to see, although I did bring my birth certificate and I also already had a Finnish phone number so that helped to set up the account. I also had a rental agreement with me for my apartment. BUT, all they needed was a passport.

A week later a visa electron card arrived in the mail and now I am using this card in Finland for all my financial transactions.

[lenipoika]

They did issue a paper card with the account number on it so I could do the old school way of banking until my card arrived in the mail. That is, to go into the bank and physically deposit and withdraw money....

Good luck with your banking.

[neronakos]

Hi. I am coming back to this subject hoping someone might help me. I 've got a work contract and a Finnish ID number (what is known as social security number here) and they are all under my ID name (I am from a E.U country). But when I went to Nordea or to Danske bank they asked me for my passport. But I don't have a passport because you can travel between European countries with just your ID. I explained them, but failed to understand. And no I cannot issue a new passport in just one week that I need my bank account (and I don't have the money to do it even if I could). Do you know any bank that just asks for your social security number and accept an ID from E.U? Thanks in advance

[ritan7471]

I opened my bank account at Nordea when I first arrived in Finland.
But I had to answer a lot of questions about why I couldn't wait to open my account and prove that I had registered with maistraatti even though I had not yet received my ID number. There were no people willing/able to speak Finnish with me at that branch (Porvoo), so I think that the fact that I spoke enough Finnish to briefly answer all the questions helped me. But the bank employee spent a LONG time in another room with a manager before they did it.

Later I had to attach my ID number to my account and this they would not do with just the official paper from Maistraatti. Instead they needed an ID card with the number on it. So I had to get an ID card from the police that had my ID number on it.

It seems to me that it's getting more difficult than some earlier posts would indicate to just open an account because you want to. But then again, it seems to me that if you ask 10 people from outside of Finland what their experiences with the Finnish banks have been and you'll get 10 different stories.

[neronakos]

Well it depends I guess on the bank. But I cannot understand since maistrati and police accept my country's ID and I even can travel with this ID why do they ask me for a passport? This doesn't make any sense.

[interleukin]

why do they ask me for a passport? This doesn't make any sense.

Because they are not trained to determine if the ID card is genuine or not (or they are too stressed out to put time into checking it). The EU passport is familiar and they know how it should be. This is the same reason I always travel with a passport even within EU, it´s enough that you get one official somewhere who doesn´t trust all the different ID cards for you to have big problems. Even if you´re technically in the right.

If you go to the Post office, you can run into the same problems when picking up a parcel. EU passport/Finnish ID card or no package. This shouldn´t be a problem, but it´s your problem if you want your package. (Trying again later with a different person may get you the package anyway).

I have to add that I find it strange that you move to a new country without bringing your passport along.