Opening a bank account for non-Spanish speakers in Barcelona is a bit difficult, as I have learned.
I started at Deutche Bank, which has a big branch on the Av Diagonal. The problem was that only one person speak English, and she was very busy, so I left after waiting 20 minutes. After this, I went to Caixa Penedes, which is approximately 2 minutes away from Deutche Bank. There the security told me that it is very unlikely that anybody speaks the level of English necessary to open a bank account in that branch, so I thanked him, and continued the search.
Finally I arrived to a Barclays branch at Carrer de Balmes. There the receptionist escorted me to a bank accountant, who spoke English.
To open the bank account a non-Spanish person must have the NIE number (which I had), and the job contract. I had a problem with the later one, since I did not had that yet.
On the next day, I told the situation to the HR, and he managed to prepare the contract, and we signed it, so I could go back to the bank to create the personal bank account.
Because I have just moved to Barcelona, I did not have any regular bank transfers, so I could choose only the very basic bank account, which had pretty high costs, but finally, at least I have a bank account.
I applied for debit card and online account as well. I had a small problem with the online account, namely that I managed to log in unsuccessfully three times and I locked myself out. So I went back to the bank on the following day, and they fixed my stupidity, so right now, everything is fine with my account (though the balance is currently zero, but my salary will take care of it).
