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Comment by pdelgallego | Hacker News Reader

> Since moving inside Europe is really simple, I'd urge anybody curious to take a shot and stay here for a while.

Not everywhere in the EU, I moved to Denmark almost two years ago, and I am completely sure that the Danish system was designed to keep people out of their border. Simple tasks like open a bank account are a troublesome for even EU citizens

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To open bank account in Germany you must be a resident or have a work/student visa. The Czech Republic will let anyone open a bank account however, but double check. Just some things I learnt last time I was in Europe on a tourist visa.

As a Dane, I can confirm that most of the policies here are created to keep foreigners out.

Until recently the government needed the support from a small nationalistic party and those laws and regulations were the price.

> Simple tasks like open a bank account are a troublesome for even EU citizens

Could you give some details of that?

So, there are EU regulations in place that are supposed to make money laundering harder. This raises the bar everywhere.

I suppose he's not referring directly to a bank account, but to our lovely home grown credit-masking-as-debit-card "Dankort" without which you might as well not have a bank account. Since they are in fact credit cards, banks are reluctant handing these out to people they might never see again.

I'm a foreigner with a bank account and no Dankort, and I haven't really found it a huge hassle. While it's hard to get a Dankort, it's easy to get a Visa Elektron, which most places accept without fees (unlike foreign credit/debit cards). And the only things I've found really necessary about a Danish bank account are: 1) having an account to designate as a NemKonto; and 2) being able to use the betalingsservice through netbanking, e.g. to pay my rent, utilities, and TV license fee. For smaller things, I haven't found just using cash to be problematic, even if most Danes don't pay in cash.

Fair enough. I'm happy Electron is gaining ground. Not too many years ago, an Electron basically limited you to withdraw cash (for a fee) from other bank's ATMs and pay in a few places - not including most supermarkets.

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