> > If you speak the right incantations at the counter, invoking the relevant legal reference
> 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My theory is that it has to do with outdated technology in the German banking sector that implies that it's actually impossible for them to make absolutely sure through technology that your account can't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_...