Opening a Bank Account

If you're staying here for a more than just a couple of months, then you may want to open a bank account. I realised after a few weeks, when I checked my netbank in Denmark, that it costs a lot to use the ATMs - I was paying about 4 euros everytimee I withdrew cash!!! So I decided that I had to open a bank account, then I would be able to transfer the money once a month, and avoid all those extra fees.

There are lots of banks to choose from, but the biggest bank (with the most ATMs) is OTP (www.otpbank.hu) so, for convenience, I thought I'd go to them. I set out on a sunny Friday afternoon and wandered into my local OTP bank and was struck my the first obstacle: a ticket-queueing system with about 10 options entirely in Hungarian. Hmmm, this wasn't going to be my day. The thought of waiting for 10 minutes, then finding out that I'd taken the wrong ticket and having to wait again didn't really appeal to me, so I thought that this was something I could leave for another day.

Fortunately, when I told this story to one of my colleagues, she kindly offered to come with me and help me open an account. So, we went to another OTP bank and began what was to be the loonnggg process of opening an account. (NOTE! Remember that you'll need your passport and something with your address on it). After about 20 minutes of working out which account I needed and typing in all my details (btw, for some reason they need your mother's maiden name, which I found a little odd), finally we were getting somewhere. It was here that I discovered that Hungarian banks either have no love of the rain forest or they own a paper manufacturer, because I spent the next 10 minutes signing lots of forms and receiving lots of paper about rules and regulations, all in Hungarian, about my account and the rules of the bank - the only one I remember was that if my account goes below zero, then they can close my account, "fair enough" I thought. I also discovered that the bank card would take about two weeks to reach me in the post, which was quite a long time I thought, but I did at least have online banking, and that was available in English which is good. And that was that. Even though it took about 40 minutes, it was relatively straightforward, and at least now I can avoid all those extra fees.

Getting a Hungarian SIM Card

One of the first things I did when I got here was to get a pay-as-you-go SIM card, since it still costs a lot to use international mobiles across Europe (although it's much cheaper than it once was). Anyway, it's the kind of thing you're going to want to do if you're staying here for longer than a few weeks, and because I was looking for an apartment and needed to speak to agents, I knew it would be cheaper.

Of course, there's no reason you can't get a contract mobile if you're going to be here for a while, but I'm a guy and so phone conversations usually consist of "Hi", "yeah good thanks, how about you?", "okay, 8 o'clock - at Szimpla?", "yep, okay, see you then" - and that takes all of 45 seconds, so a contract phone with "free" minutes, and all the other nonsense that some people find useful, wasn't worth it for me. So I just looked up some of the big mobile companies websites to find out what they were offering. After a chat with my Hungarian friend, I settled on T-Mobile and their Domino scheme.

http://www.t-mobile.hu/english/all_plans/domino_sim/domino_sim_card

There are quite a few mobile phone shops across the city, but I to the T-Mobile shop on Petőfi Sándor utca 12, in the 5th District, just because it was nearby. They have an electronic ticket system for queuing, and thankfully you could choose English, so I was able to get a ticket for Mobile Sales, rather than some other department. When it was eventually my turn (it took at least 15 minutes, which is a long time to sit in a phone showroom with nothing but smart phones to look at, btw I'm not in the slightest bit interested in smart phones - my phone makes calls and sends SMSs, so it's smart enough). The girl I spoke to fortunately spoke good English, but I noticed that some of the others didn't - there was a late 50s German guy who was clearly having some trouble explaining something. All I needed was my passport, an address, and some cash to pay for it - and the girl installed the card straight away - the domino contract I got seems quite cheap and the card cost about 5000 forint (about 17 euros) and included some credit, so I really can't complain.

The only thing I've found slightly annoying is that I've no idea how to check my balance, and see how much credit I have left - if I work that one out I'll post it here.

Update (28/03/14):
To check balance on T-Mobile Domino dial *102# and press call.
You see a message displayed.
"Egyenleg" Means balance.
(Thanks John!)