What are these?
> There's also nothing stopping them from making that bank account the least attractive bank account you've ever heard of
Why would they want to? What do they actually risk?
> restricting you to just a few machines in a restricted geographical area.
Officially area-specific or just through the specific kind of machines accepting specific kind of cards being absent outside of it? I've heard of the unreasonably complicated system of types of cards in Germany: normal debit, "electronic cash" etc.
You can't open an account like this if you already have an account. You can't pick the bank either. You're obliged to go to your last bank for this type of account. The price is fixed at the same level as the normal accounts. You can even have this account if you're homeless and don't have an address. Typical requests are done via support organisations rather than yourself, but it is is possible to do it yourself as well.
At least in the Dutch situation I don't see them introducing deliberately unattractive pricing or conditions once you have the bank account. There is a burden to open one though.
That said, I don't think bankruptcy would usually result in being account-less. More likely, you can't get a credit card, mortgage or other consumer loans, which can be inconvenient. Personal bankruptcy (as opposed to an LLC imploding) also likely means a few years of handing over all your income above minimum wage to the government in exchange for nullifying your outstanding debt. (Note that the Netherlands mostly runs on debit cards, and that most people don't have a credit card).
> What are these?
"Basiskonto nach § 31 Zahlungskontengesetz" [1], and tell them that you are aware that the regulator BaFin has a specific process in place for complaints about banks who refuse an application for a basic account [2]
> > There's also nothing stopping them from making that bank account the least attractive bank account you've ever heard of
> Why would they want to? What do they actually risk?
My theory is that it has to do with outdated technology in the German banking sector that implies that it's actually impossible for them to make absolutely sure through technology that your account can't end up in overdraft.
> > restricting you to just a few machines in a restricted geographical area.
> Officially area-specific or just through the specific kind of machines accepting specific kind of cards being absent outside of it? I've heard of the unreasonably complicated system of types of cards in Germany: normal debit, "electronic cash" etc.
The reasons are a bit difficult. In Germany there is the "Sparkasse", which is a network of small banks local to municipalities and where the municipalities have large ownership stakes (so it's weirdly-state-owned). They are legally separate but share a backoffice. Last time I did research on this the situation was this: The Sparkasse-network has more than twice as many ATM-machines than all the other banks (like Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, foreign banks) combined. A normal bank account at one of the branches of Sparkasse will give you access to their whole network. But a basic bank account will only give you access to the ATM machines by that specific branch, which ends up being highly restrictive geographically. If you get a normal bank account from, say, Commerzbank, you can use the entire network of non-Sparkasse-ATMs, i.e. use all Commerzbank-machines countrywide, plus all Deutsche Bank machines, etc. But if you get a basic account, they'll restrict you to just the machines by Commerzbank, which are few and far between, but, at least that would give you some semblance of country-wide coverage. ...long story short, life really sucks with a basic bank account, even if you don't want/need credit.
[1] http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/zkg/ZKG.pdf
[2] https://www.bafin.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Formular/dl_fo_...