Banco Popular - Mojacar

I can recommend Sabadell.  If you have their Expansión account (min 700€ per month in) it is 100% fee-free.  As an added bonus, if you open at the Vera branch, all staff speak excellent English (Sabadell is also committed to offering banking in your language)

A few of the banks here will offer fee free accounts; ALL of them require a minimum amount per month.

Yes, the Spanish Government engineered the takeover of Popular by Santander. It has been pretty ‘brutal’ with almost all sign of the Popular brand now excised and many of the branches and ATMs closed, including your Mojacar branch. You should have been sent notification. As part of the takeover, your account number should have remained unchanged but the codes you need to do online banking have all changed. You will need to go into Santander by Mojacar  Playa Correos to sort things out. Use the time to research which bank to move to, what services you need, how much you need a physical branch etc. Bear in mind too that In urban areas Spain is overbanked so will your new branch still be there in 5 years time.   

We changed bank accounts to Openbank. It is the purely online bank of Santander. You open your account online and there is no paperwork to fill out. You then download the app onto your phone and you can manage your account online. There are no bank charges as long as you do your banking online. You get one debit card free but if you want an extra card or credit card then some fees apply.

We have used our Openbank debit card to pay for goods around the EU without any charges. Withdrawing money from a Santander or Bank Popular ATM in Spain is free but outside Spain it may incur charges.

The account has a lot more functions but I do not want to overload you with information.

I opened an account with UniCaja near Koi. I think I pay them a couple of euros a month.  BUT they’re friendly and when my assets were frozen (some dork firm sent money via Malta, the Russian laundry) the manager opened up out of hours to help me sort the documents out.  That’s service you’d never get in the UK