SteveandCathy

Just wondered if anyone who has a La Caixa bank account has had the account frozen due to bureaucracy and needing information in person before unfreezing the account. No warning given and blaming new Spanish Central Banking regulations?.

Dellaph Kite

I expect this is the standard thing where the bank requires current passport or proof of identification and confirmation as to why you have the account, part of the European anti money laundering laws. Happened to me a few times, need to keep on top of it because monthly direct debits including mortgage repayments can be affected, plus you can't transfer money into the account while it's frozen. Good luck!

Jon-Bxl

Im afraid that these are EU wide rules to combat money laundering, fraud etc. For expats with non-local accounts,often not just bank accounts, but investments too.

In Spain you need to prove your residency status and details every 2 years to your Spanish bank if you are non-resident.

If you go in person with passport +NIE they will help you fill out the form and immediately unblock the account.

I personally wouldn't trust posting it in, so for me, its a trip to Huelva every 2 years.

I wanted to open a new bank account in Ayamonte, but the new rules required so much personal information, I decided to remain with my Huelva bank, as I've had the account for well over 10 years, before all these disclosures were in place.

As soon as SEPA becomes widely used in Spain, I will close my Spanish account, and pay with my local account

However you never know if they will ask later. I went into one bank with my passport for a 5 min meeting and it lasted 30 mins of questions, including for example, if I had a pre-nup or not!! In this case it was for marketing purposes and they insisted that I take a quote for home insurance!

Jon

chrismortley

Evening
Yep been through this
Can you access your La Caixa account online ?
If you can check your email account it will inform you it's been frozen but you can scan the required info & send it to them ,they take JPG not PDF
We had a big problem that our account is joint names their system would only allow me to forward my documents , the computer said no about my wife & she had to visit the branch in person
That was quite long winded I'm afraid they still work on windows 7 or a previous version ,phoning the branch is waste of time I'm afraid don't bother phoning them .
Good luck
Chris

MikeJ

Been trying to close my Caixa account with little success. When we were acquired from Barclays we were assured that we could conduct all our business in any Caixa branch in Spain. Our ISBN branch code is Caixa head office address in Barcelona. At our first attempt last year we were told that we couldn't close our account but would have to go to Huelva. So we thought we would just withdraw all the cash instead - they had a branch policy of no cash withdrawals after 11:00!! It was 11:30. Last week we arrived at 10;25. There was only one teller but only 2 customers in front of us. We got to the counter at 10:59! 😠. There were told that not only was the cash counter now closed, even though we had queued for 35 mins but also our account was frozen because of the 'black money' regulations 😡🤬 and we would have to go to Huelva to unfreeze before we can close the account 😫.
We only have a few euros in the account which we left when transferred to Sabadell because of the appalling service we had been getting with Caixa.

SteveandCathy

account now ok. A task of accessing account online and tick certain boxes and amend Country of taxation and the account is cleared. Ridiculous that such a simple thing causes such a problem.

MikeJ

The main problem we had with Caixa was online access to our account. Certain transactions used a code card but others required us to input a code sent by SMS. Barclays and the Caixa, who seemed to continue with same IT system after the acquisition, seemed incapable of recognising a +44 number and we arranged a workaround which we lived with for some time. Eventually, when Caixa migrated their system then the SMS security check became essential so our account became unmanageable and numerous calls and visits failed to resolve. So we moved to Sabadell.

Buggsie Capone

Had an account with Caixa for 35 years - never a single problem. You need to create a relationship, preferably with the manager, and speak Spanish.

MikeCol

nat21

FayeDavid

Hi, We have the same problem with the bank do you know what fields you completed on the online banking? we have uploaded passports and NOE certificates

nat21

MikeJ

Good luck with that😫 We have been trying to close our Caixa account for 2 years. It only has a few Euros in it now so we thought we'd just drain the account and leave it - now the account has been frozen. The ISBN branch code doesn't seem to exist any more (it was one of the former Barclay branches)