# Banking



## GGibson1 (Apr 17, 2012)

My wife and I are going to move to Cyprus and would welcome some advice on the most customer friendly bank to open an account.


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## PeteandSylv (Sep 24, 2008)

I anticipate you will find as many opinions on this as there are banks and twice as many opinions for banks to avoid.

Choosing a bank here is like the choice between diarrhoea and constipation. Both are a pain in the arse!

Pete


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## Pam n Dave (Jun 11, 2007)

If you want a friendly bank then the Hellenic in Polis is quite good, also the co-operative bank in Peristerona is quite nice.

However I think that I would be looking for a bank with some stability, the co-operative banks in general I think are having a little publicised bailout of approximately 1.5 billion euros and the Hellenic bank I believe made a loss last year.

We tend to use currency fair to get money from the UK to Cyprus into the Hellenic bank and then keep a weather eye on what is happening in the banking world, if there are any nasty rumours our mattress gets a little thicker.


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## Guest (Jan 16, 2014)

Pam n Dave said:


> If you want a friendly bank then the Hellenic in Polis is quite good, also the co-operative bank in Peristerona is quite nice.
> 
> However I think that I would be looking for a bank with some stability, the co-operative banks in general I think are having a little publicised bailout of approximately 1.5 billion euros and the Hellenic bank I believe made a loss last year.
> 
> We tend to use currency fair to get money from the UK to Cyprus into the Hellenic bank and then keep a weather eye on what is happening in the banking world, if there are any nasty rumours our mattress gets a little thicker.


Still all banks guarantee 100000 euro on the account and having more would be plain stupid.

The 1,5 billion to Co-oP comes from the state and I reallz think that Co-oP after the restructuring will be a good alternative, if such exist for the moment. All banks are hopelessly behind European bank standard 

We use Co-oP in Pissouri and they are very nice and helpful



Anders


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## mdekkers (Jul 3, 2013)

We have set up with Piraeus and they have been very good


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## Kaymd (Jan 15, 2014)

We are in the same situation and a couple of our friends have recommended Bank of Cyprus as the most stable. However, I don't know if they'll let us set up a current account if we don't pay into it monthly (an expensive way of transferring money from the UK).


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## PeteandSylv (Sep 24, 2008)

Kaymd said:


> We are in the same situation and a couple of our friends have recommended Bank of Cyprus as the most stable. However, I don't know if they'll let us set up a current account if we don't pay into it monthly (an expensive way of transferring money from the UK).


I've not heard of a bank requiring monthly deposits. Even if they did you could transfer money in via Currency Fair which is the cheapest way of transferring money from the UK.

By the way a current account here is one with a cheque book. You are charged for the book, each cheque, deposit etc. The account without a cheque book is a savings account which avoids cheque transaction charges but still has debit card and on-line transfers, payments, ATM access and so on. Cheques are _totally _unnecessary in Cyprus.

Pete


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## Kaymd (Jan 15, 2014)

That is REALLY useful info - thank you so much.


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## H&S (Jun 12, 2013)

We are with the Hellenic at Yeriskipou and they are very helpful. Opening an account was straightforward last year. 
You can only use specific ATMs here ie. we have to use any Hellenic one, which may be a factor to you.


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## nemo1843 (Sep 27, 2012)

Hello

We arrived in November this year and set up accounts with Alpha Bank - staff are very friendly and helpful - Alpha bank have online banking available. There is no requirement to pay monthly into the account, their only stipulation is that money being paid into the account must come from the UK - we use Smart currency as an exchange company to bring our money over (similar to currency fair).


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## Guest (Jan 19, 2014)

nemo1843 said:


> Hello
> 
> We arrived in November this year and set up accounts with Alpha Bank - staff are very friendly and helpful - Alpha bank have online banking available. There is no requirement to pay monthly into the account, their only stipulation is that money being paid into the account must come from the UK - we use Smart currency as an exchange company to bring our money over (similar to currency fair).


It's really funny to read about all crazy stipulations. Where money paid into your account come from should not be something that the bank interfere in. I have customers still in Germany and Sweden, as well as Cyprus and Coop does not bother.
And as I see it that how it should be

Anders


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## Pam n Dave (Jun 11, 2007)

We got rid of Alpha Bank and moved to the Hellenic because they were making random charges. Sometimes they would charge 20 euro for depositing money from Currency Fair on other occasions they would charge 5 euro or nothing at all. 

One year they took £50 from a sterling account because they could. When these were queried we got the run around.


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## GGibson1 (Apr 17, 2012)

Thanks to everyone for their input it has been very helpful


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