In my experience, many of the traditional banks just hide their incompetencies behind “sorry it’s regulations”.
Some show the industry how it is done: With revolut, e.g. as a EU citizen you can get an account in 15 minutes with free global money transfer and real time exchange between currencies at spot rates.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
proving one’s innocence for the most basic of things.
Sound like anything else topical at the moment? ;-)
Airborne_Again wrote:
Not being in the EU you may have avoided the silly legislation about “customer knowledge” where banks and other financial institutes demand that you answer meaningless questions which purportedly will help stop money laundering?
We got all that too – obviously it came in before Brexit.
I am willing to be corrected, but I’m not sure the actual legislation put most of the rubbish in place. My understanding was the banks got told that they would basically be held responsible for any laundered money that was found to have moved through them, so they dreamed up all this stuff to try and protect themselves.
Solicitors seem to have to do it too.
Malibuflyer wrote:
Some show the industry how it is done: With revolut, e.g. as a EU citizen you can get an account in 15 minutes with free global money transfer and real time exchange between currencies at spot rates.
Well. As far as I understand, Revolut is not a bank which means that as a customer you don’t have the usual protections. According to its Wikipedia page, it applies the same shady practises as Paypal – arbitrary blocking of accounts for an indefinite time.
Yes, Revolut get a poor write-up. I think they are a bank of sorts, though.
Airborne_Again wrote:
Revolut is not a bank which means that as a customer you don’t have the usual protections
It is a (Lithuanian) bank, but it indeed has not the usual protection against bankruptcy as some other banks have. I personally would not use it for holding money – but frequently to clear international payments and change USD in EUR. Have not found a cheaper way to do it yet (total TRX cost for transferring 40k USD from an US usd account to a German EUR account < 15 EUR at spot market exchange rate). With my traditional bank it would be order of magnitudes more expensive.
Not involved with them and hence not advertising for them …
Revolut is good for fraud. I’ve just been ripped off £6k by somebody who added a card of mine onto his Revolut card. No more info… The bank refunded it.
Malibuflyer wrote:
With my traditional bank it would be order of magnitudes more expensive.
Quite a few people I know from BG use paypal, as their banks charge tremendous fees.
That’s bollocks and you must know it, so why post this stuff??
I have seen no numbers on this. It’s just my guestimate based on posts/posters here.
if you dislike EuroGA so much, why do you keep coming back here and bad-mouthing it?
As I said, better stick with GA 
Besides, it was only an answer to your WWIII comment. You didn’t get what I wrote at all.
My friend is rather happy to be working in software for Apple in the US, free of what he describes as a “caste system” (his words)
What I see is a slightly bitter old man, blaming the “system” because he didn’t walk the extra mile in his youth. Glad he got his life sorted out somehow. Besides, the richest man in Norway has no formal education. He started with two empty hands on a trawler
That’s funny. He’s about 50 years old and hardly bitter – that’s the last word I’d use to describe he and his wife. He’s well respected at Apple, has his work on almost every device they make apparently, and is having the time of his life with two kids out of the house and good disposable income for entertainment and travel. He does return to Denmark about twice a year, he has a new grandchild there as well as one here (apparently the Danish start early!) They never seem to stop moving. Other than that, his latest joy is his new Tesla, something I can’t appreciate greatly (I fake enthusiasm 
) but which seems to make him excited. I couldn’t resist kidding him by say that at least he still has one Lexus for their long weekend trips!
The miles he walked were the miles towards the tangible opportunities he’s taken, and the achievement, environment and financial rewards he now enjoys. Working non-creatively in lockstep with a conformist society wouldn’t have worked for him, I’m sure.
