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Dutch nationals who live abroad and have an ABN AMRO payment account must pay a surcharge. In response to complaints from Dutch people abroad, the Disputes Committee of the Kifid complaints institute ruled this month that banks are allowed to charge extra costs for a current account of customers who live abroad ('non-resident customers').
Several consumers have complained to Kifid about the fact that ABN AMRO has introduced a foreign surcharge on their current account from 1 July 2021. The Disputes Committee concludes that the bank may charge this foreign surcharge. The bank charges this foreign surcharge for current accounts of consumers who live outside the Netherlands, so-called non-resident customers. The costs that the bank has to incur for these customers in order to comply with international laws and regulations are higher on average than for consumers living in the Netherlands.
An account holder who lives in Switzerland must pay 8 euros more per month for his current account and an account holder on Bonaire has a surcharge of 15 euros per month. According to ABN AMRO, this foreign surcharge is necessary because the bank has to incur more and more costs to comply with local and international legislation. Both consumers dispute that the bank is allowed to introduce this surcharge unilaterally and selectively. In addition, they consider the increase of EUR 8 and EUR 15 per month, respectively, to be unreasonably high.
The complaint was rejected by the KiFiD. The Disputes Committee concludes that there is no question of an unfair or unreasonably onerous provision in the conditions.
Source: KiFiD
I don't think that charge is unfair.
The bank undoubtedly has more costs for a separate group of customers consisting of expats.
Whether that should be 15 Euro is another question.
(Thailand is also 15 Euro I saw on my statement.)
Perhaps this will make it possible to open an account with ABNAMRO for expats in Thailand – and elsewhere.
Simply convert your address online to your own bank address.
Reason: currently no fixed address.
Make sure that all mail is digital, so no paper bank statements or insurance policies through the letterbox.
Then the surcharge may be even higher, because the control becomes even more expensive for 'bums'.
I also have no objection to a foreign surcharge from the banks, but I think that ABNAMRO's surcharge is very high. At ING I pay a foreign surcharge of 1 euro per month.
I assume that ING will follow with an increase.
I pay a monthly foreign surcharge of € 1 to my account at ING.
Cancel the bank and open an account with, for example, “Wise”. These are cheaper and faster and less complicated than your average bank.
It may be cheaper, but I have more confidence in my money in a Dutch bank than with wise or paypal.
Paypal seems to be having problems logging in at the moment, I read on Tros Radar.
Wise (and also PayPal) simply fall under the European bank guarantee system. So up to €100.000 you simply get your money back. Whether you bank with ING, Wise or a Maltese bank.
I still manage to log in to Wise and if I get a euro for every malfunction at ING, then I can go to Thailand for free business class next time. In any case, the future of all banks is “digital”.
I've also been banking with ING for almost 40 years, but if it's up to me, not anymore in 40 days. Service is equal 0 and everything costs considerably more every year. Let Tros Radar do something about that!
Wise is not covered by the European bank guarantee scheme.
They have a different kind of cover, which I don't fully understand, by the way.
They mainly store the money with American and English banks plus Adyen (not a bank) in the Netherlands.
Paypal is a completely different system than Wise. You can't send your salary (as far as I know) to a Paypal account. You can only link a bank account with your Paypal account and that must then be an account from the same country where you have registered with Paypal.
Wise is a payment service that sends money internationally, but where you cannot pay things via Wise on a website such as Ebay. Although you can send money from your Wise account to someone who sells you something via Ebay, you have absolutely no protection.
Paypal does offer that protection.
You also don't leave your entire money on Wise. Why? If you live in Thailand, you also need a bank here. So what I do is that I pay my bill (alimony) in Europe through Wise and immediately forward the rest to my account in Thailand. I therefore only receive part of my pension in a wise way. The rest just goes straight to my bank in Thailand.
The advantage, however, is that you can make payments very quickly with Wise.
For example, I had bought a ticket for my daughter and she had to refund me a small part. Now she also has Wise and the money was in my account within seconds and all she needed was my email address submitted to Wise.
Just do this at a normal bank.
This week I have to send money to an account in Aruba… that just goes through Wise. And anything I don't send goes straight to my Thai bank.
However…. should I send money now and I have nothing on my Wise account, can I debit it from my Thai credit card and put it on my account there. This is also faster than debiting a current debit account at a bank.
If you want to know more about what and who Wise is, read the following article… 7 million users…. https://financer.com/nl/bedrijf/transferwise/
I have divided my savings between the Netherlands and Thailand.
I think Thailand is a beautiful country, but not a country where I would want to put all my money in the bank.
On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if the ECB's policy caused the Euro to fall in value considerably.
Then it is nice to have a piggy bank in Thailand that I can use for a while if I am careful with it.