[fy20]

I'm not sure about Portugal, but a few years ago my wife was studying in Spain on a study abroad program. She is from another EU country, and we'd visited Spain a few times, so figured it would be easy. Pretty much every step of the way we encountered so much more bureaucracy (I am an immigrant to her country) than we could even imagine. She spoke Spanish, but if she didn't it would have been a million times harder.

For example we wanted to get internet in the apartment we were renting. The local ISP (Orange) said that we needed a Spanish bank account, we said that we had a European account so could make an IBAN transfer, but apparently that wasn't an option. So we went to the bank and they said my wife needed a letter from the police. So we went there, and after showing all her university documents and waiting there for half a day, she got that. By that time the bank was closed, so we went back the next day, and after another few hours she had a bank account. We made a transfer of a few hundred euros from our other European account at home, then once it arrived a few days later, went back to the ISP. They took our details and the first payment, and then we figured everything was fine.

A month later the first bill came and we tried to pay but it was declined, tried to log into online banking and that was blocked too. We went back to the bank (BBVA) and they said our account had been closed due to suspicious activity (the only transaction we made was the initial payment for the internet) and there was nothing they could do. So we went to visit the ISP with the intention of paying in store, but they said it wasn't an option. We explained the situation and said there was nothing they could do, we could only pay with a Spanish bank account. In the end we had to get a friend to make the ISP payment for us, every month while we were living there.

Compare this to where we live now. You simply make payments to an IBAN bank account, so it can come from anywhere in Europe. If you need a local bank account, you can easily do so in any bank (I opened an account before I was officially living there, i.e. without any local ID, just my passport) or use something like Revolut. If you need to get a local phone number, you just go to the supermarket and buy a prepaid SIM for €1 - no ID needed.

[deanCommie]

This is a fairly long story but only one part of this seems like genuine "bureaucracy":

> We went back to the bank (BBVA) and they said our account had been closed due to suspicious activity (the only transaction we made was the initial payment for the internet) and there was nothing they could do.

That's an absolute nightmare (though I don't understand how you weren't notified, or what the recourse typically is for accounts closed due to "suspicious activity".

The rest can be summarized as:

* A business wants billing from a local bank account (not universal, but not unusual)

* Opening a local bank account needs some information confirming your identity, which the police can do.

* Getting these forms isn't instant

* Banks don't have long opening hours

[fakedang]

In the UAE, I downloaded an app, submitted my docs and my details, and got my card the next day (I went to a bank branch - not the branch of my account but just a random branch to get it printed on the spot, even though they offered home delivery, because I wanted to see the process).

In the UK, I visited a nearby Lloyd's branch and got my account open and my stuff in under an hour.

In India and Switzerland, the bank sent a representative to my place, where they did everything from a handheld device, including verification. Done in an hour and got my card by mail in 1-2 days.

The stuff you mentioned in your summary are excuses and not valid ones at all.

[hknmtt]

When i was was apartment hunting in barcelona 7+ years ago and failed straight for weeks to get a single reply on idealista, and went to the real estate agencies and found they had siestas, still, in barcelona, i quit the country. good to visit, not to live.

ps: when i wanted a bank account, the people there acted like they didn't spoke english, until it was clear they won't give me an account, then suddenly english was not a problem.

[nachomg]

No, they don't have "siestas". In Spain usually all retail closes from 2pm to 5pm. I wouldn't expect to go to a UK venue and have a normal dining timetables (for me as Spaniard), because I understand things work different there.

[2-718-281-828]

mr nacho trying to justify a Spanish tradition. fair enough. but I'm still bold enough to complain about it. it's super annoying when restaurants close from 2 to 5. also I doubt anybody from the foot soldiers actually takes a siesta. it's most likely just basically a variation on unpaid work or being on call unpaid. so, nobody benefits of it except the owners who just optimize the schedule for their purposes.

[mchaver]

Unfortunately cold emails are generally ignored. The general etiquette in Spain is that you have to establish a relationship with someone in the business before they respond to emails, and then it also depends on the individual if they like to use email or not.

[TomSwirly]

> and went to the real estate agencies and found they had siestas, still, in barcelona,

I'm not seeing your issue here. This has been well-known for a century, so don't show up during the siesta time.

"I want to live in a foreign country, but they need to change to be like my home country!"

[user_named]

Why didn't you learn Spanish?

[TheLoafOfBread]

Oh, I had lot of negative experiences with BBVA in USA. Those guys has no clue how to do SEPA payments, declining regular debit card payments on e-shops like DigiKey as fraud (according to them I am suppose to train their systems so it will stop doing that) and in general their support sucks.

[pixard]

Where do you live now (if you're comfortable sharing)?

[ggambetta]

Had similar awful experiences with Santander and ISPs in Madrid :(

[Arnt]

You moved to another country and did one single banking transaction there in a month? That seems like something you have to actively try in order to do. Right? Why did you try?

[Arnt]

I see someone downvoted me. Perhaps because it was just an idle question and quite insubstantial?

Thinking about it now, it seems a little bigger than I realised when I wrote it.

I too moved to another country and got a bank account. When the people at the bank asked what I needed, I said something like "well, I'm here to stay and will need all the things regular people have, an account, a card, probably a house loan someday, can you advise me about what I should get today?". Maybe I hadn't yet decided that I wanted to stay for decades when I said that, but the person behind approved of the answer, I could tell.

Saying something vaguely like "I'll do the minimum necessary here and whatever possible in my old country" simply isn't a great way to talk to the people at the bank, at the immigration authority, at the waterworks, all the people who can make your move simple or less so.