Switching banks

Because we haven't had enough bureaucracy lately

Millennium bank served their purpose for us. They allowed us to open an account from St. Louis before we moved, which was a requirement for getting our visas.

Before signing on with them, we’d not paid a monthly fee to a bank in years. While Millennium’s charges weren’t hefty, seeing 5,20€ (5€ for the fee, 20 cents for taxes on the fee) being drained from our account on the 3rd day of each month was hard. We can think of other things we would prefer do with 62,40€ a year.¹

The fact that they were a hassle to deal with when buying our apartment finally pushed us over the edge. We needed to make a switch.

Googling “fee free banks in Portugal” and searching a couple of Facebook groups led us to Activo. Millennium happens to own Activo; that seemed like it would help make the transfer go more smoothly.

We first tried to open an account online. It didn’t take long to learn that joint accounts have to be opened at a branch. Would Millennium pass up an opportunity to make things harder for us? You bet your sweet bippy they wouldn't.

We arrived at the nearest branch around 10:30 and were glad we did. Any later and we would have been waiting in a long line. As it was, there were only a couple of people ahead of us and after a tussle with the fully-digital ticket machine, we got to talk to a person.

The good: English options available, no paper! The bad: many taps to get to the end - took Scott four tries to get through it correctly even though it was in English. The ugly: the text message we received when we finished: “Mensagem ou comando invalido. Invalid message or command. Mensaje o comando invalido. Message ou commande non valide.”

To open the account, we needed four things:

1. our residency cards

2. a valid NIF

3. proof of address

4. proof of employment (or lack thereof).

Fortunately, only two of the four were inordinately complicated in our situation.

We were most worried about our employment status. We have no “income” per se. We are not employed and we do not collect any pension or payments from a government. The idea that we are too young to collect social security or even to access the funds we have in retirement accounts (IRA and 403(b)) is not common here. We’d come prepared, though, with the same documents we needed for buying our apartment - letters explaining the situation. Fortunately, that was enough.

And because we’d just moved five weeks prior, proof of address was tricky. The website specifies that they will accept any of the following:

1. Drivers License;​

2. Tax reimbursement statement;​

3. Utilities bill;

4. Taxes liquidation issued by the fiscal authority of the country of residency or Document issued by the consulate.

While we have temporary driver licenses, they were issued before we moved (getting our address changed with IMT, the Portuguese DMV, was in process at the time). Not even sure what option two or four are. 🤷‍♀️

So our hopes were riding on option three. Problem: we hadn’t been at our new address long enough to have a water bill yet and our first power bill just came a day or two before we presented ourselves at the bank. So Scott had printed out copies of our contracts with EPAL (water company, in Amy’s name) and Goldenergy (power, in Scott’s) in addition to the newly-arrived electricity bill and the deed to our apartment.

None of that worked.

They don’t accept utility contracts, just bills, and the deed to our apartment doesn’t have our zip code on it - strange both that it’s not there and that we hadn’t noticed until then. So we didn’t have sufficient proof that Amy lived at our new address.

That didn’t stop the process, though. We just had to open the account with our old address but we were told we’d be able to change it to the new one after the account was actually opened.

And when would that be, we asked, figuring it would be days at a minimum, possibly weeks.

Awesome banker guy: I’m not sure, maybe today. Possibly tomorrow.

Really?! Wow! That’s. Wow.

But when will we get our debit cards? Because that’s what we actually need in order to start sundowning our Millennium account. Surely those will take a couple of weeks to arrive, we figured.

ABG: We make those here on site. They’ll be ready when the account is opened.

Really?! WOW! That’s. Wow.

After the initial data entry flurry, ABG told us it would be 10-15 minutes before there would be some paperwork available for us to sign so we headed out into the mall. (ABG said we wouldn’t need to tangle with the ticket machine when we returned, just get his attention.) So off we went to run some errands.

We came back maybe 25 minutes later and - after a short wait while ABG finished up with another customer - we caught his eye and he waived us back. We signed our names about a dozen times each and all of a sudden we were being handed debit cards!

The accounts had been opened while we waited! We were all set! We got text messages and emails with usernames and multicanal codes (like a password only more secure because it’s a seven-digit number and they only ever ask you for three random digits of those seven so you’re never entering the entire thing into a website, app, or ATM - though it does look silly to be counting off the numbers on your fingers every time you need cash), and we walked out to the ATM to change our usernames and multicanal codes to things we’d actually remember.

And then we were done. The entire process from first tap on the senha screen to printing the transaction receipt from the ATM took just under three hours.

Closing our Millennium accounts was another issue

First, we needed to make sure all of the entities that were withdrawing money directly from Millennium had the info about our Activo account. Transferring the direct debits from the utility companies went about as transferring the actual services did when we moved: Goldenergy, our electric company, was a piece of cake; EPAL (water) required some sleuthing but the process turned out to be easy (though lengthy) once we cracked the code, and they confirmed when it was done; and MEO (internet service provider) took a simple task and turned it into a more-than-ten-day affair² and didn’t bother to let us know when it was complete.

We also had a couple of outstanding potential credits to keep track of, one of which was an Amazon item we returned that apparently got lost en route. Once we got those sorted,³ it was time to shut things down.

Actually doing so involved more than just withdrawing all of the funds, of course. We couldn’t find any information on their website about their process so we ended up contacting customer service.

Is it easy, Millennium? Really?

Turns out, we needed to complete the task in person as paperwork must be signed. And, of course, we would both need to be present as it is a joint account.⁴ The representative said our account manager had a little more autonomy and might be able to close the account remotely.

We called him. Nope. He couldn’t. Or, perhaps, he wouldn’t. Same difference.⁵

It took several days before we were in a position to get to a branch but we finally made it happen.

And we had the best interaction we’ve ever had with Millennium bank. The teller was terrific: friendly, helpful and kind. She asked why we were closing the account. We told her we’d opened a new one with Activo and she said, “Ah. No monthly fees.”

Yup. That was a big part, but not all of the reason.

Ironically, if every interaction with Millennium had gone as well as closing our account, we may not have closed our account in the first place.

We’ve been using Activo since May 16 and the experience has generally been positive. We’ve had a currency exchange fee we weren’t expecting that we think we can work around but haven’t had a need to yet. And there are a few minor annoyances with the website and app that we’ll need to get used to and/or get over. Nothing is perfect. But it’s saving us a few bucks, so we’re good.

That’s all for now.

Love from Lisbon,

Scott & Amy

1. Like subscribe to Netflix! Yep! It’ll happen. Assuming we actually get internet here ever.

2. which isn’t surprising given that we’re more than two months at the new apartment and still don’t have service from them

3. a phrase which dramatically shortchanges both the time and effort required to “get those sorted”

4. Never mind that Scott was unable to authorize the first transfer of funds to our seller when we were buying the apartment. Amy was the only one who could sign off on sending tens of thousands of dollars away.

5. It wasn’t quite the most awkward conversation ever. Close, though.