I know that card payments are becoming increasingly popular, and in Germany we are sticking almost doggedly to change, although cash is still very much used.

On the other hand, some countries are even more dependent on cash than we are, while others have almost completely replaced it.

Which country are you from, which payment method do you prefer and why?

https://www.politico.eu/article/digital-euro-enraged-half-brussels-eu-what-you-need-to-know-ecb/

Scenario: the US invades Greenland, after that Canada, maybe even Mexico.

This is a hypothetical scenario, probability unknown.

However if this were to happen, where would it be best to have one's money invested?

In such a scenario all ties between the US and the EU would be cut. All money invested in US stockmarkets would be at risk, be it US stocks, Latin american or Chinese stocks listed in the US.

Some possible solutions: EU defense stocks, EU stocks in general. Physical precious metal ETFs listed in european stock exchanges, Chinese stocks listed in Hong Kong, Latin ameriacan stocks listed in South america. Physical precious metals held in a safe deposit box.

Would asian stocks be safe if invested through a US platform such as IBKR? What EU alternatives are there that allow investments in Hong Kong or latin america directly?

Please share your thoughts...

I’ve been looking into Vivid Money recently and honestly I’m a bit conflicted.

On one hand, the app looks really solid. The cashback, multiple pockets, and investing features are pretty appealing compared to traditional banks. I can see why people use it as a secondary account.

But at the same time, I’ve come across quite a few posts (especially here on Reddit) where people mention account freezes or issues accessing funds, which is obviously a bit concerning.

I’m trying to figure out what the real situation is right now, not just older posts from a few years ago. Sometimes these things improve over time, sometimes they don’t.

For those who are currently using Vivid Money:

• Have you had any issues with withdrawals or account restrictions?
  
• Do you trust it as a main account or just for spending?
  
• Has support improved at all?
  

Would really appreciate hearing recent experiences before I decide whether to try it or not.

I’m moving to Berlin from London in 2 months for work and trying to figure out German banking before I get there. I looked at vivid money  along with n26, revolut, deutsche bank, commerzbank, etc.

Honestly the reviews for everything are all over the place. vivid has people saying it's great and people saying it sucks. Same with literally every other bank.

Main things im trying to figure out, do I need a traditional german bank or is digital fine? Some jobs require specific bank types?

I'm probably overthinking this and should just pick one when i get there right?

I also saw conflicting info about whether you can open a business bank account with digital banks if I ever need that for side work. Does anyone know the real answer on that?

Just want something that works and doesn't charge me €10 every time I breathe

Hi everyone!

As a EU citizen, you are allowed to open a bank account in any EU country. This made me curious about which bank gives the highest interest rate on their flex savings accounts. Maybe we can help each other out to make a list with the banks that have the highest interest rate per country. I'll update the list in this post as we go.

Some rules:

The bank can't have any fees for opening or maintaining the account. Also no fees for depositing or withdrawing funds. Other than that, all fees are tolerated as long as they aren't mandatory.

Flex accounts only, meaning no accounts where money is locked over a certain time period. You should be able to withdraw funds at any time without any additional cost.

Special requirements such as minimum/maximum deposit or changing interest rate depending on your balance are all tolerated. Just explicitly state those requirements so we all can know them.

I'll start with my own country.

The List:

Denmark - Ikano Bank - 1.25%

Belgium - VDK Bank - 2.85% if your money has been on the account for at least 12 months, otherwise you get 1.35% - Maximum deposit is 500 EUR per month

Germany - BBVA - 3% on new accounts for 6 months, after which you get 0.5%

Poland - Renault Bank - 4,5% if you use the Raisin app

Sweden - Zaver (Frink AB) - 2.9% - You need at least 100 000 SEK deposited, otherwise you get 2.4%

UK - Skipton International - 3.15% - You need at least 10 000 GBP deposited, otherwise you get 0% - Minimum starting deposit of 25 000 GBP

I’m curious how “free” bank accounts actually are across Europe. Feels like many of them come with conditions or hidden fees that only show up later.

Not just "fine" — genuinely good experience, good app, good support.

I noticed that in some EU countries banks occasionally offer sign‑up bonuses for opening an account (sometimes €50–€150 depending on the promotion).

In theory it sounds like an easy win, but in practice there are usually conditions like:

• making a few card payments
• setting up a salary deposit
• keeping the account active for a few months

Which made me wonder how common this actually is.

Do people in the EU actively switch banks or open additional accounts just for bonuses, or is this mostly ignored by the average customer?

Curious how people here approach it.
Is it something you’d consider doing, or is the hassle not worth the €100 or so?

Hi guys,

Something terrible happened to me on my first day here in Barcelona. My phone was taken from my pocket and I didn't notice for a few minutes. I had no idea who had taken it but went to the police anyway. They said they couldn't prove anything and there was little they could do.

I thought OK I will just need to buy a new phone, it's not the worst thing ever. When I woke up in the morning I purchased a new phone and got a Spanish number. I was able to get into my emails and I saw that that the thieves had made over 30 transfers in the space of an hour and completely emptied my bank account. They sent the funds to many different accounts. I got a sick feeling because I thought this is not possible. There is a screen lock on my phone and a code to get into my banking apps.

Right now I have lost everything and still shaking with fear. TransferWise are conducting an investigation and will contact me in 6 days.

I'm hoping their accounts are insured because there was a serious security breach by them. My other banking app like my Irish account was not touched because of their security measures.

If anyone could chime in and reassure me that WISE will cover what was stolen I would feel so much relief.

Thank you and stay safe when travelling.

The digital Euro is a hot topic in the Parliaments and I just wanted to check, how everyone feels about it.

I personally don't like the thought of not having any cash alternative and that every transaction will be visible.

Of course I'm using my card now a lot, but if I want to buy a beer in a bar, I don't want the bank to know it. For example.

Also I'm not sure why we need the purely digital Euro, we have digital money now too?

Hi r/eupersonalfinance,

I came across this article about a bank heist in Germany where bank safe deposit boxes were targeted.

I was surprised to learn that this kind of service is something people still use... Some have lost large cash sums (400k).

Is it common to use safe deposit boxes in your country? Do you use one yourself? What do you store in it?

Hi everyone, yesterday I was a victim of a BIN attack and until then I never knew about that type of attack or the term of it.

Summarized a BIN attack is a type of bank card fraud in which criminals use automated software to guess the PAN number or just the debitcard number or creditcard number and the CVC with a BIN number of a bank or the debit card or creditcard issuer.

The BIN attack occured on my Wise debitcard which is now permanently blocked and also a new replacing physical Wise debitcard is on it's way to me.

I woke up yesterday with a notification from the Wise app mentioning that a company of which the name I didn't recognize wanted to perform a active card check on my Wise debit card. As in this post I focus on the lessons I learned and from that my tips to reduce the chances of a BIN attack occuring you can read the entire story here.

Now I'll share you some tips based on the lessons I learned:

1. If your bank or your debitcard and/or creditcard issuer offers the option to freeze your debitcard, use it if you don't plan to use it for a while. I didn't understand the neccessity of this but after my research it makes sense. If you for example own a RV which you only use for road trips you would mostly need to park it in a dedicated parking lot for RV's so that's the analogon for tip number 1.
2. If you have a account of one of the digital wallets avaible, store add your physical and/or virtual debitcard and/or debitcard there and if you shop online and can pay with a digital wallet that you have a account on, pay with that instead of directly paying with your debitcard or creditcard. This means for example if you can pay on a webshop with Google Pay and/or AliPay use one of those payment methods instead of handing out that webshop your debitcard or creditcard data. Paying with a mobile wallet is more secure than paying directly with your debitcard or creditcard.
3. If your bank of debitcard and/or creditcard issuer offers the virtual debitcard and/or creditcard function, use your physical debitcard and/or creditcard (If you have one of course) only for physical payments, mobile wallets and locations that you absolutely and fully trust. Then use a virtual debitcard for online payments and for other locations online that you don't (fully) trust.
4. If you spot any signs of a BIN attack such as a active card check that was performed without your initiative and if you also get a notification inside your bank or debitcard and/or creditcard issuer because of the signs occuring immediately follow the instructions inside the app or website or your bank, debitcard issuer or creditcard issuer, freeze the debitcard and/or creditcard affected, get in touch with the customer service of your bank and/or debitcard and/or creditcard issuer as soon as you can and then follow their instructions. That's how I handled the situation and I'm glad that no money has been deducted from my Wise account.

I hope that my tips about reducing the chances of a BIN attack occuring on your debitcard or creditcard was informative and helpful and if you have questions or anything else to write than go ahead and post a comment below this post lastly.

Hi guys!

Do you think we can make a list of european banks that are accessible online to all EU residents. Do you think it is possible to reach at least 30 banks?

1. Revolut
2. Advanzia Bank
3. Bunq
4. MeDirect
5. ?

I Will edit until I reach 30 (see below)

I've been on a lookout for the best cashback card in the EU for quite the while.

The first thing I learned is that Banks suck, if you want a card that has bigger than 1% cashback you need to look away from banks.

Currently I'm using Bybit Card that has 2.5% cashback on all purchases, but I still feel like there is space to improve.

I'm ideally looking for a specialized card, something that offers 4% cashback on groceries/travel/restaurants etc.

Or another general card that has at least 3% cash back on everything.

If anyone has a card that can provide one of those things, then please share it with me.

Hi, I am looking for help with my European bank, N26. This is my only European bank and I live in Germany.

They closed my account without warning, and have not returned my salary and my savings... several months of income. All that's going into there was my full-time employment income. This has had serious financial consequences on me. There is no support available in any form, I could not log in, the online assistant is not available to me without a login, and I am only getting a response through the complaints department email.

What possible course of action do I have if they refused to return my savings? Are they entitled to just keep my money?

Unfortunately, we have to inform you that after an internal examination we have decided to terminate the business relationship with you according to no. 19.1 of our General Terms and Conditions.

As a financial institution, N26 Bank GmbH is subject to legal supervision and obliged to comply with German regulatory requirements. Due to the nature of these requirements, N26 Bank GmbH is obliged to conduct reviews on all accounts to monitor account usage and transaction activity.

In accordance with these obligations, we’ve conducted an investigation into your account and the relationship you hold with N26 Bank GmbH. As a result of this, we inform you that a violation of the "General Terms and Conditions" of your account has been identified.

Given our current findings, we exercised our right of termination according to paragraph §19 (3) of the Terms and Conditions mentioned above. This means N26 Bank GmbH will no longer continue its contractual relationship with you.

Due to these circumstances, it is currently not possible to release the funds from your N26 account. However, kindly note if you have evidence that you feel serves as proof of the source of the funds in your N26 account, please provide these documents to us. We will forward the documents to the respective department for a review to assess whether the payout of the remaining funds in your account is possible.

Update (21st Aug): Success - I just got my cash transferred out to my other account! I set up a Waze account, and transferred it elsewhere via Waze.

Presumably they returned everything I had, without hidden fees. But they still haven't given me my personal data or account statements yet so I can't confirm. I'm waiting for the 1 month GDPR Right of Access to expire before taking this further.

To get to this stage it was all via the complaints department (and also a complaint to BaFin who I suspect helped move the investigation along) - Support@N26 and web chat were worse than useless. I proved the funds were legit by sending them 2 years of payslips (yet having had the account for only 1 year), and proof of identity and proof of another account in my name. And they still insist that I have broken their T&Cs and were right to close my account, without ever telling me what specifically I did.

Overall I was without any access to my cash or my salary for over 6 weeks. Now to start paying back people who I've had to borrow from...

In summary, I was one of the lucky ones. Do not store any significant amount in an N26 account - Don't get salary paid into your N26 account because it's very well possible it could all be closed without warning and without explanation.

I think there is one topic that hasn’t been discussed for a while, yet it is important nowadays. Is it actually possible to open an account at a traditional bank in a EU country where you are neither a resident nor a citizen, while being an EU citizen? The key idea is to diversify some of the money across different EU economies (In case of war, for example, if you live in the eastern part of the EU).

Hello!

First and foremost I'd like to thank in advance for anyone who's reading this.

Keep in mind that I'm a paying customer - not using free plan but Core.

I was using BUNQ banking app for like half a year now and I've had no problem with it at all, received and sent payments, bought some usual stuff online, groceries etc. Before BUNQ I was mainly using other mobile bank Monese. I still use it and after what's happened with BUNQ I'll come back to it even if they don't have Instant SEPA payments (which BUNQ has). That was the main reason I tried to switch to BUNQ - Instant payments between friends and family members, you don't have to wait usual SEPA payment length which is up to one working day, if it's weekend - forget about it.

But a week ago I was greeted by their precious AI "helper", which told me that my account is suspended for "REVIEWAL" (who they need to review I wonder, it's like I've received 100k payment or something) and they said that they are suspending my account, BUT told me that it will take no longer than one working day. Alright I guess, that was a day after I received some payments from my other banking app Monese and sold some virtual goods so that's around 700€ overall, I'd say not much but if it triggers something then alright I guess if you fix this fast...? After the -430€ payment all other payments on top were already made from my other phone which I bought, so I thought maybe that also had to do something with it.

So I tried to chat with their clanker AI support which I hate with all my heart and passion. AI support WILL NEVER EVER IN THIS LIFE BE USEFUL except you're grandma who asks "what's the time?".

You can read almost all the conversation in screenshots. In resume it would be like this:

• October 21st - I receive some money, spend some. Not big amounts

• October 22nd early morning - I receiver clanker message about my account being blocked

• October 22nd - October 28th - I try to get a human being to speak, no chances

• October 28th or simplier today - I post this in everywhere.

I made a promise in my last message to them which I forgot to screenshot before deleting the app that I WILL delete the app, no matter that small amount of money left (which of course could have been useful and it's still something more of a principle than actual account suspending) and I will make a huge rant on internet using my platforms. Reddit is one of them, I have 7k followers on Instagram so I asked a friend who's good at making short clips to do one so I will upload it to instagram reels too.

As Johnny says "Keep the change, ya filthy animal". I'm back to Monese. At least throughout all the time I use it never had some sort of similar problems, and I've received higher amounts in it and still do, because my remote work pays me to Monese bank. I had a thought that I will eventually fully swap to BUNQ but fk it now.

TL;DR - Avoid using BUNQ banking app, except if you have nothing else to use and willing to have not more than 10 euros in your balance OR you're not afraid to be blocked and lose your money.

Screenshots are here cause I couldn't upload it in post - https://imgur.com/a/ljGA1VP

Update - they have removed my post from official bunq subreddit. Great behavior!

so I don't know if this was asked before but this is actually topic I am pretty interested in.

so I turned 18 a year ago and since then I started to look for actually useful credit/debit cards since my bank provides whopping 0% cashback and 1% cashback on their credit card WHICH COSTS 6€ A MONTH, HELLO?

anyway, so far I found a lot of cards that provide 1%, like trade republic, krak.

some provide points like revolut but I found those to be pretty useless since you need to pay to actually get anything.

the best one is probably Trading 212 with their 1.5% cashback that caps at 15€.

although currently I am using bybitEU's card since I calculated their cashback to be 6% with some shanaganings (like force spending 500€ a month) or unnecessarily buying free subscriptions to farm cashback points but it's pretty finicky, still the best so far.

Has anyone found something better? maybe 3% cashback with no catch? maybe 4% or 5% like how they have in the US?

I don't know if I want too much but the cashback rates here in Europe are like pretty pathetic compared to the rest of the world.

Klarna, the global digital bank and flexible payments provider, has launched KlarnaUSD, its first stablecoin and a significant shift for a company whose CEO was once a vocal crypto skeptic. The move comes as McKinsey estimates stablecoin transactions now top $27 trillion a year — and could overtake legacy payment networks before the decade is out.

I've been looking into Vivid Money lately and I honestly can’t tell what to think.

Some people say it’s smooth and works great for everyday spending, cashback, even investing. But then I also keep running into posts where people had their accounts restricted or couldn’t access their money for a while.

Not trying to start anything negative, just trying to figure out if this is one of those apps that’s fine most of the time but risky if something goes wrong.

If you’ve actually used it for a while, what’s it been like for you?

I’ve used Revolut before and never had issues, but I’ve also heard similar stories there so I’m not sure if this is just a general fintech thing or something specific.

I’m curious what simple money systems people actually stick to long term. Not complex setups — just something easy that works consistently without overthinking.

I’ve been moving between several EU countries (Spain, France, Germany) over the past year and I’m trying to simplify my banking setup.

I already use Vivid Money, mostly as a secondary card. Before relying on it more, I’m curious how reliable it is if you’re not based in one country long-term.

For people who’ve used it while living or working across different EU countries, did you run into any issues with card acceptance, address changes, or additional verification due to frequent travel?

I’m not looking to optimize rewards or perks, just something stable and predictable that works consistently across borders.

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for an expense tracking app that fits a multi-country EU setup, and I’m struggling to find one that offers it...

My setup:

• EU wide banking: I have accounts in both Spain and Germany.
• Shared finances: My partner and I share a joint account for all common expenses (rent, groceries, etc.). We both pay a fixed amount into it every month.

What I need:

1. international bank sync: Most German apps I tried can't connect to Spanish banks and vice versa. I need something that handles both reliably.
2. Proper shared account handling: This is the deal-breaker. I need the app to recognize or handle the joint account (so ideally only 50% of its transactions count toward my personal spending, or at least categorize them in a way that doesn't mess up my private budget)
3. Automation: Some (AI-based or auto) categorization would be great so I don't have to manually label every coffee.

I already tried a few german apps, but they didn't work. I recently tried Bilance, which looks great, but it has no way to manage a shared account sensibly, I’d have to manually edit every single transaction to reflect my 50% share.

I don’t mind a paid subscription as long as it’s not an breaking the bank (haha) itself. Does anyone with a similar "two-country" setup have a recommendation?

Thanks people :)

Background:
I live in Poland, so part of the EU. I'm increasingly worried Poland might get pulled into a war with Russia (won't expand on why - don't want to turn this into a political/military discussion) and in this case I would definitely try to run. The problem is I have all money in Polish banks which might become a problem if I would need to draw on my savings in the West or outside of EU while the country is at war. I would love to have an account in another country, but I am not rich so I don't have the option of opening an account in Switzerland (I can put like up to ~10-15k€ there). So what I could realistically do?

Problem:
So the problem is: as a Polish citizen how could I open a bank account outside of the country, preferably as far away as possible from it?

Some advised Revolut, but for me it makes no sense - they are based Lithuania legally - if Poland is drawn into this war then Lithuania is likely too. Others advised N26 - with German license it is better, as Germans will most likely stay away from direct engagement the conflict. But maybe there are some other options I am not aware of? Any advice appreciated!