How to not take out money in Poland

In the first place, it is needless to say that everything depends on which debit card you have when you go on Erasmus. And it is not the same as if you had the Caja de Ingenieros, which on this same page explain how it works and what advantages it has; or a card from Santander, which is the first I will not recommend you.

What wisdom do you have on the subject?

Well, I'll say enough, more than anything because my story is something curious: I came with the Santander card, because they told me that the commissions would not be very high; Once I reached the city and saw the commissions that ate up my money every time I withdrew, I got an account with a Polish bank; until finally I came back to Spain in winter and made the best decision so far: Evo Bank.

Why not the "normal" cards?

First of all because they charge you a fixed amount every time you withdraw which in my case was two euros. And you will say: "Antonio, how stingy you are, 2 euros are nothing". And of course they are not all that good; but if you do not want to be charged two euros each time you withdraw and are in the habit of taking out lots of small amounts; this will be your downfall and 2 will be a very, very dangerous multiplier.

Also, if you think that it is as simple as taking out a large amount of money and it's fine, you're already making a mistake; you will come across a thousand stories and between them plenty of robberies, and so I advise you to not do that since you'll always have a ton in your wallet or you'll simply have too many Zlotys stored in your room, house, drawer, or call it X.

The banks are not stupid, and while you are in Spain, they will tell you that they charge you nothing and less; but in addition to those two euros of fixed charge there is also a percentage with respect to what you take, although usually not too big, a 1%. But you add to the matter and it is noted and not appreciated

Read where you want, the information online is not very clear, and much less if you go to the nearest bank personally; so the best thing to do is to continue reading and recognize that if you have a debit or credit card from banks such as Santander, BBVA, popular, la caixa, etc; It will not be the best option.

Is getting a Polish bank account the solution?

Well it is not either; because look at my roommate and I, we went around asking to all kinds of Polish banks to see what was the best option. We also asked her mentor, who kindly accompanied us to figure out our options; this was finally what became clear: the solution was the bank of Chuck Norris, WBK, that green bank and now I will put an image of him.

What the mentor translated for us first sounded very good; and the WBK gave us two accounts for zero commission; one in zlotys and one in euros, which would allow our parents to send us money from Spain to our Polish accounts for only 2 euros; which was not all bad.

The problem came when you wanted to exchange the euros in your account so you could withdraw in zloty and the exchange rate was key. That year the exchange was always around 4. 20 zlotys per euro, occasionally deviating to reach 4 or even 4. 40. All this fluctuates daily, every five minutes depending on the currency market or Forex. The thing was knowing all this data and numbers; the exchange rate from WBK rarely exceeded 4, which meant being "robbed" 10%, something unacceptable.

They would excuse themselves with the fact that you could follow the currency exchange rate minute-by-minute and change your money from euros to zlotys when convenient for you; but no matter how much you looked at it, the exchange rates were predominantly around 3. 95 or so; which, as I said before, still seemed to me like robbery.

As for other banks, better not worry, if that was the best; Why do we want to know the worst?

For those who think that banks like Santander are also here in Poland and also my Erasmus city, Lodz, so accessible that I could find it in numerous streets; I told them that they did not give me any benefits and that they still charged me the commissions that I mentioned in the previous section; so if someone told you that while on Erasmus it is the best option to get an account in the country in question, my answer is clear: no.

So what is the best way to take out money then?

Well, it will be the subject of my next article.

Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's gooooo, let's gooooooo people, we keep learning and improving.

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