I briefly alluded to money woes in a different blog. Here's the deal: thanks to the US's crackdown on illegitimate money movements, those of us who have perfectly innocent intentions also have difficulties. Add to that some little cultural issues, and you have a recipe for disaster. For a while, when we were trying to get our money across the pond, we felt like we were in a Tilt-a-Whirl ride in some demonic financial amusement park.
We had money available in the US. We had a few options:
1. Write a check that the Italian bank would definitely take weeks to cash (past experience) and where there would be hefty fees.
2. Use a money transfer service, which could charge substantial fees or not, depending on whom you asked and which service you used. This would require setting up an account for approval, which could take days for a US Person.
3. Open an American bank account that could handle international wire transfers (ours didn't, but our brokerage account did...but these accounts were our IRAs and couldn't be touched, so we'd have to send money from a trust account that had no money in it to speak of). This could also take days (or weeks, depending on whether they needed original signatures on forms that would have to be mailed). This also involved either using the existing account I had (whose exchange rates and customer service I don't love)
4. Open an Italian bank account that had an American presence (non-existent, but worth a shot).
We basically tried to do the middle two simultaneously. Michael was in charge of the money transfer service (spoiler alert: in the short term, his method won. In the long term, it's the more expensive choice so we still wanted to try for option 3) and I was in charge of opening the alternative Italian bank account.
I went in person to talk to different banks, and I settled on Fineco ("la banca che simplifica la banca"/"the bank that simplifies banking" is their slogan) because they would let us have multiple currencies at once, they have great exchange terms, and I had simultaneously been trying to figure out how to deal with Florence's payments in pounds sterling...so it would solve an additional problem.
Well. It has a really easy process for setting up the account: you print out an online form, sign it, include your W-9s, copies of your documents, and send a wire transfer from your existing Italian bank account OR alternatively go to a branch office (ours was inconveniently 45 minutes away, in Perugia) for them to identify you. I blithely paid for the express (supposedly overnight) service at the post office, sent all the documents, requested the wire transfer, and waited. And waited. And waited. After multiple days, I got an email saying "Anomalia" ("anomaly") and telling me that I had a problem because the name on my new account ("Alexandra Hook") didn't match the name on my wire transfer ("Alexandra Claire Hook"). Oh, and fun fact: my W-9 has "Alexandra D. Hook" (maiden name initial), my American passport has "Alexandra de Kok Hook," and my British passport has "Alexandra Claire Hook." Fineco had kittens about that, but I fortunately found a document put out by the British Consulate composed in Italian for just such an eventuality that said that English speakers just don't really get hung up on names and have a lot of flexibility, and that when we do business in Italy, they will just have to get over it.
This was just the beginning of a series of disasters with Fineco that finally ended in August (two months later) with the opening of my account. They proceeded to find every way to make my life complicated, but I persisted solely for the purpose of having the multiple currencies and the decent exchange rates. We have now successfully received money from the US using "normal" banking channels (wire transfers) rather than money transfer services.
In the meantime, after a week of seriously high stress (we were worried that the earnest money wouldn't come in time, and the contract would be nullified), the money came across with a wire transfer service, so we were locked in!
If you ever want to bank in Italy, pay attention to the name you use.
Love,
Alexandra de Kok
Alexandra Claire de Kok
Alexandra de Kok Hook
Alexandra Hook
Alexandra D. Hook
Alexandra C. Hook
Alexandra C. de Kok
We had money available in the US. We had a few options:
1. Write a check that the Italian bank would definitely take weeks to cash (past experience) and where there would be hefty fees.
2. Use a money transfer service, which could charge substantial fees or not, depending on whom you asked and which service you used. This would require setting up an account for approval, which could take days for a US Person.
3. Open an American bank account that could handle international wire transfers (ours didn't, but our brokerage account did...but these accounts were our IRAs and couldn't be touched, so we'd have to send money from a trust account that had no money in it to speak of). This could also take days (or weeks, depending on whether they needed original signatures on forms that would have to be mailed). This also involved either using the existing account I had (whose exchange rates and customer service I don't love)
4. Open an Italian bank account that had an American presence (non-existent, but worth a shot).
We basically tried to do the middle two simultaneously. Michael was in charge of the money transfer service (spoiler alert: in the short term, his method won. In the long term, it's the more expensive choice so we still wanted to try for option 3) and I was in charge of opening the alternative Italian bank account.
I went in person to talk to different banks, and I settled on Fineco ("la banca che simplifica la banca"/"the bank that simplifies banking" is their slogan) because they would let us have multiple currencies at once, they have great exchange terms, and I had simultaneously been trying to figure out how to deal with Florence's payments in pounds sterling...so it would solve an additional problem.
Well. It has a really easy process for setting up the account: you print out an online form, sign it, include your W-9s, copies of your documents, and send a wire transfer from your existing Italian bank account OR alternatively go to a branch office (ours was inconveniently 45 minutes away, in Perugia) for them to identify you. I blithely paid for the express (supposedly overnight) service at the post office, sent all the documents, requested the wire transfer, and waited. And waited. And waited. After multiple days, I got an email saying "Anomalia" ("anomaly") and telling me that I had a problem because the name on my new account ("Alexandra Hook") didn't match the name on my wire transfer ("Alexandra Claire Hook"). Oh, and fun fact: my W-9 has "Alexandra D. Hook" (maiden name initial), my American passport has "Alexandra de Kok Hook," and my British passport has "Alexandra Claire Hook." Fineco had kittens about that, but I fortunately found a document put out by the British Consulate composed in Italian for just such an eventuality that said that English speakers just don't really get hung up on names and have a lot of flexibility, and that when we do business in Italy, they will just have to get over it.
This was just the beginning of a series of disasters with Fineco that finally ended in August (two months later) with the opening of my account. They proceeded to find every way to make my life complicated, but I persisted solely for the purpose of having the multiple currencies and the decent exchange rates. We have now successfully received money from the US using "normal" banking channels (wire transfers) rather than money transfer services.
In the meantime, after a week of seriously high stress (we were worried that the earnest money wouldn't come in time, and the contract would be nullified), the money came across with a wire transfer service, so we were locked in!
If you ever want to bank in Italy, pay attention to the name you use.
Love,
Alexandra de Kok
Alexandra Claire de Kok
Alexandra de Kok Hook
Alexandra Hook
Alexandra D. Hook
Alexandra C. Hook
Alexandra C. de Kok
No comments:
Post a Comment
We love to hear your comments! They encourage us to write more!!