We are with Barclays who have kindly cut back and shut their Ayamonte branch. We have all our direct debits and other payments setup with them and now we have no local branch to talk to.

Can anybody recommend a local bank who do not have high bank charges for transferring money in and out. We would also like them to move our current Barclays direct debits over automatically. Those with online banking and English speaking staff would be an advantage especially during the initial setup period

A question you could ask is about the financial status of the Bank. With the banking crisis in Spain some of the smaller banks may not be a safe place for your hard earned, at least Barclays has international status and guarantees. We are in the same situation re Barclays but have decided to stay put until the dust settles as it's easy to transfer money back to my UK account (I can also take advantage of the exchange rates!) - we only need to use branch services rarely and make the trip to Huelva a day out (there are some nice restos near the bank!)
I did make enquiries at Santander, the transfer process sounded about the same as in the UK, ie the bank takes care of it all. They do have some English speaking staff. Others who bank there may advise you on their efficiency etc. Sol Bank has been recommended in the past.

Depends how old you are.

What would age have to do with it Middle aged

We have an account each one at Solbank which is a good account but not free. The other at Banco Popular which is a Club Senior account. This is for pensioners and requires a pension to be paid direct into the account.

Not collecting our pension yet, but time does fly. We are only using the account as a pass though and not holding much in there, so not too bother about the bank situation. Just after one with cheap monthly and transfer charges.

The Club Senior account is free but you have to keep tabs as you do with any Spanish account. If they charge you dispute it and they generally back off and do a refund to the account. With the Club Senior you get extras which are useful and free so we use that as our main conduit for bringing money over and then move it about on this side in cash or DD for Electric, Water and IBI, EUC etc.

Don't know if this is of any help but, we also have a Barclays account and we just transfer an amount every month using a currency exchange specialist (message me if you want details). There are no charges involved at either end and we get excellent exchange rates (certainly better than normal bank rates). Regards Bryony

Hi John & Lynn,

I have an account with Barclays in Huelva and can correspond with them in English by E-mail. I can let you have the contact addres if that would help.

I also have an account with the Banco Popular but they have relatively high charges although not as bad as Santander but with the utiltiies discount and free banking Barclays are still the cheapest that I have been able to find, so long as they remain in business of course!

kind regards,

Alaric

I am not saying Barclays are expensive, in fact it was the perfect choice when they had the local Ayamonte branch. It's just that we need a local bank to pop into when we are over and don't want to have to go to Huevla. I know some of the other banks in the town can be expensive, so we are trying to find out which local ones are best for low charges and speaking a bit of English.

Hi,next to La Puerta Ancha is Sol Bank, lots of Brits use that as they speak good English. Sorry no idea about charges. Regards Bryony

We use Banco Popular. They know enough English that with our Spanlish we get by. Probably not the cheapest, though.

Cheers all, we'll take a look at those mentioned