Frankfurt The German savings banks have started to set up accounts for Ukrainians on a larger scale. On Tuesday, the savings banks had already opened 26,518 accounts for people fleeing Ukraine, as the German Savings Banks and Giro Association (DSGV) announced on request. That’s 23,000 more than a week earlier.
Out of social responsibility, many savings banks offer these accounts free of charge for a limited period of time, the DSGV explained. As a rule, these should be basic accounts for which banks normally charge a monthly fee.
For example, the website of the Sparkasse Köln-Bonn, one of the largest savings banks, states that refugees from the Ukraine can open a free current account in their branches in the two cities. “The checking account will be free for one year and offers access to all services.” At the Sparkasse Heidelberg, refugees of all nations also receive a free account for one year.
Currently, the refugees mostly come to Sparkasse branches to open accounts. According to the DSGV, the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe is now working on creating the conditions for opening an online account. Ukrainian refugees are allowed to work in Germany and receive social benefits.
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Since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, around 250,000 refugees have been registered by the federal police in Germany. The number of people who actually arrived is probably significantly higher. As a rule, there are no fixed border controls at the internal EU borders, and Ukrainians are also allowed to enter the country without a visa.
Ukrainian ID card is recognized as a substitute for a passport
A Ukrainian identity card is sufficient as proof of identity for German credit institutions when opening basic accounts. The German banking industry (DK) industry representative had previously asked the Bafin financial supervisory authority for clarification.
The Financial Supervisory Authority complied with this request. For the financial institutions it monitors, there will be no regulatory consequences “if they accept a valid Ukrainian identity card for money laundering identification when opening basic accounts,” the authority said two weeks ago.
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According to the Money Laundering Act, Ukrainians should actually present a passport to open an account. However, most refugees do not have a passport. In addition, last week the Federal Ministry of the Interior issued a so-called general decree that the ID card of Ukraine will be recognized as a temporary passport substitute.
The savings banks in particular opened many “refugee accounts”, as they were often called, in 2015 and 2016, when many people from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan came to Germany. At that time, the financial supervisory authority had classified several documents from German immigration authorities as sufficient for proof of identity.
Ukrainians are still having major difficulties when they want to exchange the local currency hryvnia for euros. This is currently not possible with the vast majority of banks and exchange offices – simply because there has been no demand for it so far.
However, some of the refugees have withdrawn large amounts of cash in Ukraine – and would now like to exchange it and deposit it into bank accounts. According to the Reuters news agency, the EU now wants to help exchange hryvnias for EU currencies. According to an EU document, the refugees’ money will be exchanged for three months at the rate set by the Ukrainian central bank. The EU governments still have to decide this.
More: Savings banks warn of the economic consequences of the Ukraine war