Intro

This is the second post in the series of opening a business in Greece. In this part, I am going to cover the bank account opening part. Every business needs a bank account where invoices can be paid and the one I am opening is no exception. As part of this blog, you will learn what documents I needed to supply to my bank and hopefully learn from my mistakes.

Choosing a bank

Greece has various banks in operations and nowadays some online options as well such as Revolut. I wasn’t brave enough to try the online banks for the time being so I went with Peiraus. They have the Winbank app which seems easy to use and with enough options for the day-to-day. It’s also one of the established banks in Greece perhaps alongside the National Bank of Greece.

Waiting times

One thing that struck me initially was how long the appointments are taking to be able to open one such account in Peiraus. They told me ten days later. Thankfully I managed to find a way to get an earlier appointment but be aware that opening a bank account might not be a next-day kind of deal.

Documentation

If you are already a resident of Greece you will be asked to supply a tax clearance document (Εκκαθαριστικό) but in my case, since I was an ex-pat returning, I didn’t need one.

I brought the following documents with me:

• Rental Agreement(Μισθωτήριο)
• Letter(Υπέυθυνη Δήλωση) from Landlord that they allow me to use their premises as my business base
• Letter from the Revenue about my business starting operations(Βεβαίωση Έναρξης)
• Id

How it went

When I went in the clerk required me to also provide a signed statement that I wasn’t able to procure the tax clearance for 2022 since I was living abroad. Keep in mind that to procure signed statements you have two options. One is to visit a KEP(Κέντρο Εξυπηρέτησης Πελατών) and the other is to do it online via Gov.gr. To do it online though you will need a bank account as this is how they confirm your phone number and your identity in Gov.gr. Don’t ask me why taxisnet that I have already setup doesn’t work though 🤷‍♂️.

The POS situation

I was told by my accountant that all companies need a POS these days. This wasn’t entirely true. After asking around and with the help of the Twitter army I realized that I made the mistake of applying for and getting a POS. Acquiring one will set you back by €150-€200 depending on the bank, let alone the monthly subscription to run it. If you need one there’s a better offering from Viva Wallet. Their ePOS costs nothing to run other than the fees which might be better for you if you intend to keep it largely unused. In my case, I ended up returning it for a refund(hoping to get one that is) as it turns out that for B2B transactions this isn’t needed. With all that said, the area is a bit gray so better consult your accountant for a more accurate picture of your setup.

The offer for “more services”

Once the bank account opened the clerk asked me which “package” I was interested in. That seems to be a sales tactic to sell you some insurance or other products as part of your business account. They presented it to me as being something mandatory for Peiraus which I haven’t found any evidence to date. I managed to dodge that for the time being and you should too if they try to sell you anything similar as “mandatory” with your business account.

Access to the mobile app and web

As soon as the bank account opened I was able to download the mobile app and log in. Once I got home I logged into Gov.gr and created a signed statement that I mentioned above since I was now able to authenticate and identify myself in Gov.gr so I didn’t need to visit KEP to do it. I forwarded the letter to the clerk and that was the end of my journey to open a bank account.

Next Steps

• Signing the agreement to provide services
• Getting a company stamp
• Kick-starting the steps to avail to ΑΡΘΡΟ 5Γ
• Generating my first invoice via GOV.gr