Saw that news on Yle today, and was wondering from your experience if it has been an issue for you?
Go to say I’m French too, and getting a bank account when I arrived in Finland was quick and easy, especially compared to France.
They do mention that 450k people seems to claim they can’t get a bank ID, seems like a lot to me.
7 comments
During the first weeks in Finland without a bank account, it was really difficult to get things done. Problem at the time was that because of Covid restrictions, one needed to make appointments with the bank that were possible only two weeks later. And then still some more days to receive the online credentials.
I got fined by Traficom for not registering my car soon enough. It would be helpful if the deadlines after immigration would be a little longer.
I’m not sure how exactly the varmenne thingy works. It’d be great if one could walk into city hall and obtain some sort of authentication tool. Now it’s all outsourced to private companies.
As an immigrant to Finland I found it absurd how long it took to get a bank account. This is compounded by the fact that there is a ton of things you can’t do until you have the bank login.
In my experience, it has been a really long proccess but not because of bank obstacles but because the bank procedure of becoming a new customer is TOO long, having so many steps and lot of dead times in between each of those steps. Ex: every communication or information was sent by letters (many of them for the same thing) to be “more secure”.
I moved here in 2016, got a bank account as the first thing after registering permanent residence… I got the bank account number and info 2 weeks later… haven’t had issues since
To me it just seem like some can’t handle bit of red tape and stop trying.
Yeah, it was a pain in the a** for me as a EU citizen.
1/Most banks did not have English website/app. Not very practical for non-Finnish/Swedish speakers. S-Pankki, if only you could offer English service… (Of course I don’t blame them, it’s my responsability to learn the local language)
2/ The process of opening the bank account, at least with Nordea, was just impossible. So first you phone to a (paid) number to book your appointment. Then you go to the appointment, and they scan your passport etc. Okay, so far so good.
But then you have to wait a week or two for them to call you without notice at a random time during the day (to discuss the bank account details). Using a hidden number that you cannot call back. It happened during a time when I was very busy with my work and far away from my phone. So I could just see the “missed calls” after my work day, with no ability to call back.
However, OP has a much more friendly process so if anyone is reading this, I recommend.
OP, I have met a person that came to Finland looking for a job so he could hopefully stay here. He got stuck in migri, bank and other administrative crap for so long that he ran out of money before he any of those things were completed and left the country.
Coming to Finland without a job and only enough money for a month or 2 can end badly.
He told me, he would take any job, but they didn’t take him for a dishwashing job, because he didn’t have hygiene papers, and registering for those requires Finnish ID, etc. Other employment agencies wouldn’t take him without it either, and so on.
Bank wouldn’t give him a bank account because he didn’t have a job and Finnish ID. He wouldn’t get a Finnish ID from migri, because he didn’t have a way of sustaining himself. And we have a circle of dependencies that you need to break.
After being declined you can go to the back of the queue and wait for a couple weeks again.
Although I think there still were some things he could’ve done. It still feels like he was not being welcome and just being excluded.