Banking in Romania is a reasonably painless experience, as long as you choose the right bank. Opening a foreign currency current (checking) account, known in Romania as cont current, requires only a passport (with a valid Romanian-entry stamp, illegal immigrants I am afraid cannot open bank accounts) an address either inside (for resident accounts) or outside (for non-resident accounts) of Romania, and the minimum deposit (usually about €35 at a standard Romanian bank, a lot more at the better, foreign banks – see below). Accounts can be opened in most hard currencies, while opening a lei account takes slightly more paperwork, and is not really necessary. If you plan on staying in Romania for any length of time we recommend opening a forex account as transferring money in is quick, safe and easy, and actually far cheaper than continually drawing out cash from ATMs.

In our experience, the best banks for personal banking are HVB and Citibank. Both have reasonably high minimum deposit requirements, and are very customer oriented. Both are safe, discrete and all staff speak English. For corporate purposes, both HVB-Tiriac and Citibank are good, as are ING Barings and ABN Amro (the latter two banks dealing exclusively with corporate clients, and again with good English speaking staff, often expats).

Cashpoints (ATMs) are ubiquitous, and offer better value than most exchange offices or banks, although your host bank or credit card company will charge a commission for the transaction. For those of you who do need to change cash, we recommend using a bank rather than an exchange office.