Belgian Exposure

american in brussels

Expat man Expat woman Photoblog

A record of our challenges and experiences relocating to Belgium from Minnesota.

Tags: Expat life, travel

The author

athovda

We are from Minnesota and are moving the family to the Brussels area for a 2-3 year assignment for work.

Comments

Hello, I read your story about buying a car in Belgium and your delay about the money transfer. It's true that we don't use bank check anymore in Belgium..but we still use them for large amounts, those checks are special and validated by the bank with the exact amount. But, yes, using checks in Belgium is very rare and require long banking verifications because nobody trust them. Usually we pay nearly everything by bank transfers so I would recommand to open a bank account in Belgium. There are many us banks with offices in Brussels, e.g. Citibank is very well represented. Transfering funds from an us account to a belgian account would be fairly quick and even quicker from an us account to a belgian account of an us bank. Hope this can help, Yours, Francois
by Francois on 03/03/2009 at 12:58:45

Hello, I read your story about bank account in Belgium. As we receive income and other travel expenses in US $ and transferred the USD to Belgian account (USD account)we have to pay a lot of fees (Citi charged approx $ 25 for each transaction). Can you recommend how we can reduce this fees? An USD account is recommendable because the exchange rate is so volatile lately.
by viva on 29/05/2009 at 19:16:23