A thread rich in fact, experience and opinion. I like it 
(On the back of this, Iâm waiting for my cardâŚ
)
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I had Fineco here in Italy for quite some time⌠Then they added the monthly fee and I abandoned it I was quite comfortable.
There were some negative aspects:
-
When I deposited cash from ATM I had to wait 24/48h before it was credited to the account
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Transactions are accounted for slowly and sometimes youâll miss some expenses youâve made.
In many other things, however, it was impeccable. I was struck by one thing in particular⌠text message notifications of purchases made online and in stores.
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Interesting, thanks for posting!
I suspect that Fineco U.K. customers probably canât use the ATMs to deposit cash, but I donât know for sure as Iâve never tried.
The card being of UK origin probably shows that it runs on a separate system, so I would think itâs unlikely.
There is also no monthly account fee in the U.K.
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Hmmm, yes that was what I was wondering - I thought itâd be nice to be able to fully pay like a local, with no possibility of being stung by DCC. Do you know if card terminals can differentiate between a cardâs country of origin and the cardâs native currency, in which case youâd expect Euro to still be the default?
Iâm really hoping that their UK offering uses push notifications as opposed to SMS!
Euro or GBP, Graham? 
âŚand was the sign up process much of a pain?
One review I read of them (UK) complained of how slow the (GBP UK to UK) transfers are, which Iâm guessing is a symptom of them sending using SWIFT as opposed to FP 
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Triodos do this too. As nice as push notifications I do appreciate the SMS approach. Old school it may be, they come through to all my devices, and theyâre within my most used app so Iâm less likely to ignore and forget.
Canât stress how many times Monzo have charged me overdraft fees because I forgot about the notification and ignored it, so didnât move money out of a pot in time. My own fault, but I doubt this would happen with SMS notifications.
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SMS notifications are useful if youâre in a place where the internet connection doesnât catch well. I prefer them 
in the current bank i have i get push+sms notification and i repeat, i find it very useful.
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I think Iâd appreciate the ability to toggle between push and SMS notifications, solely for when Iâm travelling in a country with non-inclusive roaming where Iâd have my mobile data turned off most of the time, but I could continue to receive SMS messages free of charge.
Having both at once would definitely annoy me - my notifications screen is cluttered enough as it is! I guess what I like about push notifications in favour of text is that I find them clearer/more instantly recognisable (with the little bank app icon logo as opposed to the generic messages speech bubble icon), they can take you straight to the relevant item within the app if you tap on them, theyâre more secure than SMS, and you can receive them if you have a phone signal or WiFi, whereas with SMS alerts you need to have phone service (unless your carrier supports SMS over WiFi calling). Admittedly, for push notifications youâd need mobile data turned on in addition to having service, which isnât an issue for me since I leave mine on all the time, but I do know of people with very limited allowances who turn theirs off whenever they arenât actively using it. Each to their own, and I think the choice to choose wouldnât be a bad thing at all.
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I opted for the GBP card - no particular reason (though I suppose transacting in euros is unlikely to happen).
A selfie
A password
Two 8-digit pins (both the same is allowed)
Job done. 10 minutes?
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I think the BIN database purely records the country of issue, not the currency. Even if it did, many of the payment processors would still spot the âforeignâ country of issue and justify that as a reason for offering DCC.
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Well, I just signed up and Iâm afraid to say that I found the process just as bad as @riceuten.
I applied via the app if it makes any difference (strangely no request for a selfie, @Graham 
)
First problem was when it asked me for the âIssued municipalityâ for my passport. Now considering our passports are issued by a central body, HMPO, in this country, I have no idea why this question existed. The set options consisted of a list of every town and city in the UK. I decided to just stick London down, considering itâs where the HQ of HMPO is located.
Next issue was that the form wanted my âCity of birth.â This field used the same set of towns and cities as the aforementioned question, and given that the place of birth on my passport is a London borough, I was straight out of luck, so again I opted for just London. This wouldnât be an issue, but it seems that the section of questions that this one was a part of was all about the data actually on my passport, such as date issued, expiry date, name âas it appearsâ etc⌠so these places not matching may indeed prove problematic.
Then came the T&Cs. It was a series of screens, each with a different legal point and checkbox, with a greyed out âContinueâ button at the bottom. I assumed that what I was supposed to do is check the box, then tap continue to see the next point and so on. However, as soon as the box was ticked it moved me immediately on to the next screen - no need to press the seemingly pointless Continue button - so you can imagine my surprise when I preemptively tapped the first box before reading the details (thinking nothing would go through until I hit the giant Continue box), and it all disappeared and moved on to the next one, with me having no idea what I had just agreed to!
Anyway, I learnt not to tap any more boxes until I had read the entire screen, and eventually I got through it. So, application finally complete I thought Iâd take a look at the app⌠after all, this graphic had cheered me up a bit
But no more than a second after I thought all had gone wellâŚ.
Great. Never mind though, Iâd just received an email instructing me to set up my codes. Sadly, tapping on the link to do so in the email just opened the broken app, so I copied and pasted it into Safari. In I got, and I set up a password (which had to be exactly 8 characters and only letters and numbers, which is just horrible security practice to force those constraints) and a PIN. On to step 3, which was something about text codes I think. Iâm being vague about this bit because when I tapped on the âRead more info about thisâ link a new page opened in the same tab. How genius. Sure enough, tapping the back button to get me back to the form simply returned an error page.
I tried to use the Activate Codes link again to resume the process, but sadly it just took me straight to my Fineco account dashboard. So Iâd really appreciate it if anyone on here can remember what steps 3 to 5 of the activation process were, because Iâve been unable to do them. I have sent a message to support via the website, but Iâm not holding out much hope that theyâll be able to understand exactly whatâs happened considering theyâll probably be feeding my message through Google Translate it seems.
All in all, probably the worst application process for a bank I have ever been through.
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I must admit the whole thing was a seat of your pants job. I had the same experience with the whole read this and click that routine, with screens advancing seemingly at their own behest.
As I recall, I set up a password then two 8-digit pins (which I duplicated). Got the welcome message and an able to access the appâŚâŚ
âŚ.which doesnât currently take you further than four info screens on the features and a message saying the account will be up and happening âin a few hoursâ.
Weâre now some 30 hours on - I assume time passes slower in Italy 
.
Probably the most bizarre application Iâve been party to.
No big deal, as Iâm not interested in trading (clearly the primary purpose), so itâll not hamper me any. Keep us postedâŚ?
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Thanks Graham, will do! I only got as far as setting up one PIN before it went - I think the one I didnât have the opportunity to create was the âClient Service Password,â which I tried to then set up afterwards but it still shows as âSet Passwordâ as opposed to âChange Passwordâ in my account so Iâm sceptical as to whether this has worked or not. Does either yours or @Sebâs show âSet Passwordâ despite you both having set it up during the initial activation, out of interest?
And yes, this is the extent of my app currentlyâŚ
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Well⌠It all happened this morning!
Accessed the app to check progress and, upon creating yes, another code (7 digit this time) Iâm now in.
Firstly, I got an âincrease limitâ message which requires me to enter the middle 8 digits of my card number (too soon 
). But Iâm able to click beyond that into the app itself.
Talk about feature-richâŚ!
Hereâs some screen shots:
And an email:
ExcitingâŚ
Update: Bank transfer took just over the hour to show.
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So itâs not just meâŚ
The opening of the account for me took 4 working days, so âa few hoursâ is probably optimistic.
Bizarrely, I received a call from them yesterday from a woman who barely spoke any English, just a few words, I had to break out my school boy Italian to engage with her. She asked if I had opened the account and âdid I want it for just a current account or for investments as well?â.
If you try and call them, on either of the numbers given. they never answer. To be able to use the investment side of things, you need to pass a mini test to do so, which was really detailed. Sod that.
Most of the functions - including, er, ordering a card, require the middle eight digits of a card you donât have. You effectively need to get them to send you the card manually. They confirmed this to me in an email.
So I assume that all of us are âincredibly unluckyâ and this supports @Sebâs view âthat all of our problems are of our own makingâ ?
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Which in my case would facilitate a very short conversation - âJaâ, âBuenos Diasâ - that sort of thing 
Thank goodness I went there a few times. They have just emailed and said they are now reinstating the bank account they were going to close (âthis account will not be destroyedâ).
No sign of the card, but itâs early daysâŚ
Mine was instant with Revolut (EUR to EUR) but took a similar time to you from Santander (GBP to GBP)
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Getting there, dear chap⌠getting there 
This makes the Child & Co expedition seem a like a walk in the park 
In terms of ease of transfers, I wonder if it would make sense for me to use Starlingâs euro account. Must say, I canât see the right way with this, efficiency-wise.
Thoughts ?
If this is the application process, just close and ditch - and let us know how that goesâŚ
Well this sounds like quite the horror story! Is the ordeal worth getting through?
I want the card, not sure I want the hassle. The whole outfit feels like a 90s operation from first impressions.
Actually it has been a exhilarating roller-coaster ride full of fun and frolics. My Fineco account will surely be a game-changerâŚâŚ. (Now whereâs that debit card, then? ).
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