[yurishimo]

I've recently moved to NL from the USA; iDeal is great! I won't go into the excruciating slog of work that was required to open a Dutch bank account as a US Citizen, but now that I have an account, it's awesome!

Account transfers are much faster as well, which is true for most (all?) SEPA countries. I know the US is actively working on a faster/cheaper transfer system but realistically that is still 5+ years away for most consumers.

[culturestate]

> I won't go into the excruciating slog of work that was required to open a Dutch bank account as a US Citizen

I keep hearing about these horror stories but I've only actually experienced it once, years ago in mainland China.

I (also a US citizen) moved back to Europe this summer and opened accounts in both DE and NL; I only had to provide my passport, SSN, and proof of address and I was good to go.

Am I just preternaturally lucky, or what?

[yurishimo]

I think it was a few things. First, I’m not in the Randstad, but in Brabant. I don’t work for ASML or Philips so the company that hired me was not familiar with many of the resources available to expats.

Second, I dutifully listened to the employees who tried to tell me to sign up via the various apps. I went in person to the ABN bank building in Eindhoven where a lady at the front gave me a business card to call a phone number with a disconnected line to attempt to open an account.

Third, I listened to the Reddit when they said Bunq had severely declined in quality and just coming off of Simple in the USA, I was hesitant to join a neobank in a new country with no physical presence should I have a problem that needed to be solved immediately.

Finally, I was not totally aware of FACTA and what that meant for me as a customer. I eventually created an account at the Regiobank in my small village, but I didn’t know about the requirements so my account was delayed for use for two weeks while they manually updated my details.

Consequently, after the shitshow at ABN, I walked down the street to ING and was able to make an appointment for the next day. However, because INGs entire sign up is app driven now, I was left without a login because I signed up in person due to the FACTA requirement. I’ve requested the login to be reset and mailed to me twice (an option they offer, I assume for old folks) and I still can’t access my account online or in the app. I opened the account in mid-September.

So yeah, some of it was my fault, but as far as ING and ABN are concerned, it’s pure incompetence.

[zinekeller]

> Am I just preternaturally lucky, or what?

Did you chose a bank that has an international footprint (and would be forced to comply to FATCA sooner or later)? I'm not shocked about it. It is indeed true if you want to use a more local bank though. I heard that most neobanks in Asia (which tend to have higher interest rates) forbid US persons (as defined in FATCA) because they're focused on locals and don't want the overhead of FATCA compliance.

[culturestate]

> Did you chose a bank that has an international footprint (and would be forced to comply to FATCA sooner or later)?

Yes and no. Neobanks weren't a thing when I was getting settled in Asia (I think Simple launched in the US ~two years after I landed), but I use Bunq - which, as far as I know, has no US operations - in NL and my local Sparkasse in DE.

[mcv]

Are you from the US? I do know banks have special rules for US Persons, but I have no idea what kind of impact those rules have on opening a bank account.

[culturestate]

> Are you from the US?

Yes. Most people seem to blame FATCA, but while it's a pain in the ass for me personally, no bank I've ever used has blinked at it. They just ask for my SSN and a declaration of tax residency and move on.

[mcv]

Could very well be. Like I said, I don't know what kind of impact it has on the creation of a bank account. I do know that banks have to report about US Persons to the IRS, so there are special rules for you, and they do need to know that you count as a US Person.