Banking here

This week brought about yet another new adventure - I set up our CZ bank account. I had already asked around for some opinions of which bank to use and decided to go with eBanka as they are known to always have English speaking people at each branch. There is one in the square, about 2 blocks up from where I work, so I decided to try this one out. One of the people from my office called the bank and made an appointment for me. I went to the bank and asked for the person I was to meet...Sorry, they say, but that person is out today and a different person would now meet with me. Okay, upstairs I go and meet with a personal banker. He explained all the options for accounts and what the fees were. Unlike in the US, types of accounts and subsequent fees were not based on your minimum balance but instead it depends on how much money you deposit in a given month. Thus we have to put 30,000 CK (about 1,500 US) in the bank each month to get the best options. Fees are for wire transfers and for ATM withdrawals. There are no fees for eBanka ATM withdrawals...all others are 6.5 CK per use - this is about .31 cents, so it is less then they charge at a lot of ATMS in the states. Oh - here they are called BankoMats instead of ATMs, so you may be seeing that word in future entries. After about an hour of paperwork, we get to the part where I give them the money for initial deposit. I was curious to see what they did at this point since there were a few different ways to do this...with varying costs for me. We had brought some money with us to set up an account and get us by until I received my first paycheck from the Prague office. I gave him the US money and he thought for a minute then said, "Well, if we make yours a dual currency account it will cost about 11 kc for the first month and you can put both CZ and US Dollars in it. You can also transfer from one to the other for 1 KC. " This is actually far less than I had heard from anywhere for money conversion so was very pleased. Seemed like I had a smart, honest banker here. He is also the banker I can deal with from here forward and he gave me a card with all his contact info. I then picked out a Visa Bankcard which you pay for annually. It takes about a week to get the card. The banking system here is obviously very fee-focused . He then took me through the process to do online banking. This is very prevalent here as most people you need to do recurring payments with will give you a bank and an account number so you can do a direct deposit to them - very easy. So, online banking is very sophisticated and very focused on security here . This is what you have to do to get to your account online:

1. Go to the eBanka web site and pick a method of verification...I chose cell phone. There are two other options, one being an online calculator that you can pay a fee for :)
   
2. Put in your ID number ...this is like your user name and is strictly numeric, but it is not your account number.
   
3. Now you click a button that says verify. In less than 10 seconds, you receive an SMS text message to your cell phone with another 7 digit code.
   
4. Enter the code from your cell phone.
5. Now you can enter you PIN number on the site.
6. You are logged into your account.
   

You can now access everything...balances, transactions, etc. However if you need to make a payment or transfer funds or anything along those lines, you need to go through the whole process again for each transaction. Thus, if you accidentally left a browser window up and you are logged into your account, there is not really anything anyone can do with it.

Now that was all on Tuesday. On Friday I had to make a withdrawal from the bank to pay for the lease on our new flat. I went in the bank, up to the cash window,and I asked how to make a withdrawal. My personal banker was not in yet so I was on my own. The women spoke little English and finally got one of the other bankers to come over. He showed me the form, that of course was only in Czech, and helped me fill it out. It was pretty straight forward and I think I can fill it out next time if I have to - except for where you have to write the amount out in words. I still don't know the numbers in Czech. I say thank you and hand the slip to the teller. I figure I am home free at this point. She asks for my Passport... fine. Then she asks for my User ID that I use on the website...OK, fine, I give her that. My Cell rings...it's an SMS with another security number. The Teller hands me back the slip and points to a line on the form. I fill in the security code and hand the slip back. She types it in her terminal and looks pleased. A receipt spits out and I sign that. She then gives me my money and another receipt, this one stamped by the bank - Whew! So the banking over here is very, VERY secure which I like but there is certainly some inconvenience involved in this level of security :)