Current accounts, demand deposits and savings accounts

You can ask your bank to do this. It should help you switch accounts swiftly and efficiently.

Banks should cooperate and exchange all the necessary information between each other and you to ensure that the switch goes well. Also, your bank will transfer any money you may have in your old account to the new payment account.

These transfers are free of charge between payment service providers operating in Spain or within the same provider.

Spanish banks and other deposit-taking institutions are members of the Spanish Deposit Guarantee Fund and therefore deposits and accounts are guaranteed up to a limit of €100,000 per holder, regardless of the number and type of deposits held.

Some branches of authorised financial institutions outside the European Union are also members of the Spanish Deposit Guarantee Fund, when deposits or guaranteed securities are not covered by a guarantee scheme in the country of origin, or if such coverage is lower than that in Spain, thus requiring an additional amount to make up the difference.

Children can only open accounts through their legal guardians, generally their parents. Both parents or just one, provided they have the express or tacit consent of the other, will be able to operate the child’s account to make deposits, withdrawals and conduct other transactions.

Grandparents, siblings or other family members cannot open an account on a child’s behalf.

In some circumstances, parents may have their parental authority withdrawn or limited by the courts. Divorced parents may have an agreement for just one of them to have full or partial parental authority or this may have been decided by the courts.

Once the child turns 18 he or she will be able to use the account just like any other account holder.

Customers can usually withdraw cash at any of their bank’s branches. If you take out money from a branch other than your account holding branch, the bank should ask you for identification and check that there is no reason why the money cannot be withdrawn.

 “Aportaciones de fondos” (fund contributions) no longer exist.

The type of payment services they were used for has been replaced by SEPA direct debits.

With SEPA direct debits the payee and payer may be the same party, and there is no limit on the amount of the direct debit mandate. The steps involved are:

• You have two accounts in two different banks and you want to deposit funds into the account in bank A, which in this case would be the payee of the direct debit.
• You instruct bank A to issue a direct debit mandate against the account in bank B, which would be then the party issuing the order or direct debit payer.
• This allows you to make the transfer without ordering a transfer to the account in bank B, which would make you liable for money transfer fees.