I just moved to Dresden, and I now have to open a bank account. Which banks would you guys recommend? I'm looking for an account with as little fees as possible.

I was thinking of opening up an account with Deutsche Bank, but I think they have a 5 Euro fee per month. I heard that this fee is waved if you have a monthly income of over 1000 Euros per month. Is this true?

My coworker also suggested that I use a credit union that he's using. Apparently, he gets to take money out of any bank machine for free, which is a huge plus... But I think Deutsche Bank has partnerships with other banks around the world, which would be really helpful for me.

Also Deutsche Bank has online banking in English, which is a huge plus for me.

Any info would be really helpful!

I can't tell you much about other banks, but we use DB. The fees aren't too bad. We can use a network of German banks (Postbank, Commerzbank, etc) ATMs for free. Bank of America is also in their network, so when we're in the US, we can pull $$ out of our German account for free at any BoA ATM...and vice versa if we need money from our US account while in Germany. This was important for us since we have direct payments for student loans in the US. They had to be set up with a US based account.

Deutsche Bank are pretty good... and so are Commerzbank.

The advantage with Commerzbank is that you can do online transfers overseas using the online banking service.

Does anyone know if the fees get waived for people who have a regular income? (like me...)

No - they don't generally offer free banking in Germany. But on the other hand they also don't charge you forty quid for a letter the instant you go overdrawn like British banks do...

Postbank is free if you deposit something like 1000€/month (and not get overdrawn).

I've just opened an account with the Volksbank...its an online account and is free. Its called a CleverGIRO account.

If you haven't already opened an account, you might also want to check out the DKB. They don't charge (us) any money for the account, and they offer what passes for decent interest in Germany. Also, ATMs are free everywhere in the Euro-zone. (They say worldwide, but it ain't true.)

How about Dresdner Bank?