Our lawyers are trying to get my bank account in Portugal opened at Millennium BCP, and theyāre saying that Millennium wants my bank in my home country to issue āa declaration of good standingā for me (declaration stating that I have a bank account at the bank since X, that I have been in good standing throughout this period)? Iāve never heard of this before. Is this something anybody else has had experience getting from their bank?
Yes, Iāve had to provide these or something similar in the past. My past banks, usually one in the UK, have been able to provide. I would consider it a āstandardā request tbh.
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Here in the US I have had to obtain on behalf of my company and itās not an unusual thing they deal with. Millinium should have a form you can provide (at least thatās how itās worked for me). Then I would probably start by calling customer service at my bank unless you have a banker you deal with.
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I had to do this once for US Banks and I had a terrible time trying to get one to do it. It required repeated calling and speaking with management, etc several layers up. And even then they did not give me exactly what I asked for. This seems to be something that the rest of the world does regularly, but the US does not. If you can ask a non US Bank, that would be ideal.
My advice is to ask multiple of your banks to do it if you have more than one. The importance of the letter seemed to be that you had the account for a long time, rather than having a lot of money in it.
Additionally, I was able to get a few of my US Banks to issue a āverification of depositā letter, which many US Banks will issue pretty much automatically. Sometimes those documents provide the information needed by the foreign banks and can be used as a substitute.
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I think because US banks use ChexSystems, which is like a credit score but for checking accounts. People who overdraft accounts etc are reported there, and US banks check that before letting someone open an account.
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Just to note that for me, BPI only required a letter from my employer, a utility bill, some tax info and a copy of my passport to get the account open. If youāre really struggling with the declaration letter, maybe try a different Portuguese bank?
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Hello, I see several people have experienced the same or similar. However, ours was different. As individuals (USA residents) (not a business account) we were not asked for this kind of information at all. We acquired our NIF number and then opened an account at Millennium with a 200 
deposit. Maybe we didnāt need other steps b/c we got the NIF first, perhaps? Hope this helpsā¦
I think it depends on the individual branch and/or your lawyerās relationship with the branch or branch manager. I think many people did not have to provide letters of good standing to open accounts, but others might. I personally did not have to in order to open my account in Portugal, but have had to for banks in other countries. The info in this thread should be helpful in those cases.
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When I opened my account with Millenium - private client - I had to provide a letter from my UK bank - also private client - saying that the source of funds destined for the GV investment was legit. The UK bank readily provided that and did so very promptly, although as I mentioned this was from a private client bank. I have no idea how you get this out of a regular āhigh streetā bank, where you are on hold for hours, get put through to a customer service rep who just reads from a script, and if you ever need to follow up with a second, third or fourth phone call you will have to repeat your story from scratch, again, to a completely different customer service rep who will have no record of the umpteen conversations you already had requesting such a letter. Good luck!