No Chip & Pin Credit Card

If he will be there for a year, he should be able to open a bank account with a personnummer, a letter from the school, and his passport (with his visa), although it might not be worth the hassle. His cards WILL work, but he has to tell the cashier to swipe it. They will require ID, but it should work just fine. My bet is the "no" he is getting has more to do with the extra bit of work the cashier has to do.

But it will not work in most unmanned situations (ticket machines etc.). To facilitate things, he should get a PIN on the card and use it when required. In Sweden he sould swipe the card and press the "Ej kod" button next to the display, which should allow him to sign. All POS terminals have slots for swiping.

Andrews Federal Credit Union offers a card with the EMV chip and pin and several people on this forum have reported success using that in unmanned machines. You might try that option, particularly if he can't open an account in Sweden. That might be easiest. "Swedish banks will not let him open a bank account due to IRS reporting required by Swedish banks on American account holders". That doesn't seem quite right. I'm American and have a Swedish bank account and I individually report my foreign holdings. I did read that there were some changes to reporting requirements for foreign banks (previously foreign banks only had to report if they had branches in the U.S.), so it could be that banks are making it more difficult for U.S. citizens. The U.S. is one of the only countries where a citizen has to file a tax return even if they are residing abroad. The biggest hurdle is that you need to have a person number to open a bank account. You have to register with the tax authorities to obtain a person number. Then you have to get a Swedish ID card. I read recently that some changes in Swedish law had made difficult for non-EU students to get a Swedish ID card. I would suggest that he talk with someone at the school to see what the options are for getting a personnummer and ID card. There are a lot of transactions that are challenging if you are living in Sweden and don't have a Swedish issued ID card.

The credit card should work if it is swiped. I don't know what your bank's fees are on foreign withdrawals with the debit card, but that might be the easiest way to go. I can't imagine a student (assuming his housing needs are taken care of) needing so much money all the time that ATMs would be very costly (unless you are with Bank of America).

Earlier this year Diners Club Mastercard replaced our old cards with chip and pin cards. So now we're set as far as European travel and charging. I suspect this happened because Diners Club was bought out by a Canadian company.

About three years ago, they changed the laws to tighten up on IDs moved the authority to skatteverket (the tax office). During the first year and a half is was IMPOSSIBLE to get an ID card if you were a visiting student. Before the change, you had to have someone come with you to the tax office and vouch for your identity. After the change, it had to be someone official and no, youe\r passport wasn't valid ID according to Swedish authorities... despite the fact that you have a Swedish visa in your passport. They were supposed to have a system set up to check with migrationverket (immigration) so that they coudl verify your visa, but when I went in the skatteverket lady said that migrationverket didn't collect a signature so the card had to go through the "long process". In total, it took 8 weeks to get the ID card after waiting a year for them to fix the laws. Anyways, fast forward to today. Your son should have a "UT Kort", which is the card that he got with the year visa. This should be valid Swedish ID. He needs to go into the skatteverket office and apply for a personnummer (bring the passport, ut kort, and any letters from his school that he recieved) and apply there. After that, he should get the personnummer in a week or so and then he can go and apply for a bank account.

Nicholas, I didn't know they were now issuing an ID card with the visa. There is a new U.S. regulation and it does sound as though it is now not as easy to open a foreign bank account when you are a U.S. citizen. The except below is from "The Local" www.thelocal.se/39522/20120306/ "Of increased concern for banks and other Swedish financial companies is a regulation with yet another confounding acronym: FATCA, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which requires foreign banks to report Americans to the IRS starting in 2014. FATCA regulations require banks to install costly software and have already led some Swedish and other foreign banks to deny service to potential American clients. A quick survey of some of Sweden's leading banks shows that most are studying the issue but have not made any concrete decisions as to whether they will either comply with the new regulations or simply stop taking on American clients."

Thanks everyone for the ideas. My son has now been able to use his credit card by asking the cashier to be able to swipe, sign and show ID. What a relief. Hopefully if he needs to use a kiosk or other machine a "no pin" button will be available. FYI-banks in Sweden will no longer let American students open bank accounts. This is a recent policy. The email we received from the University stated:
"We recently received information from the local bank we are co-operating with, about restrictions in the service towards American citizens. The U.S laws of financial services have been changed, which means Swedish banks (and this goes for ALL Swedish banks) cannot any longer help you open a Swedish account" and this "previous years American exchange students have been allowed to open bank accounts in Sweden, this is however no longer the case - the reason being new Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) regulations. (Information on these new regulations can be found here: http://www.irs.gov/businesses/corporations/article/0,,id=236667,00.html, http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-05-17/why-foreign-banks-are-shunning-american-millionaires and http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2012/03/23/fatca-makes"

If that's the case, then I REALLY regret closing my account there. However, my bet is that this is just the banks putting up a fuss. They would have to install the EXACT same software to open an account and report on that account for my grandmother (a US and Swedish dual national) as they would for me as a US citizen. They just don't care about foreign students. If you were there as a refugee or as someone with a job, you would have a bank account opened in no time but as a student? They don't want to help.

Lee Ann, I have a couple of comments: 1.) I agreed with other posters it is likely the teller didn't want to swipe it themselves. The automated machines are hit or miss. For example in Switzerland last year the train machine wouldn't take my Capital One MC because it didn't have a PIN but when I put in my AMEX it took it no problem. I love the Cap1 card when I travel because of the no foreign transaction fee as well. Every where else I bought tickets, souvenirs, etc I had the teller swipe it and there was no problem. In the last 12 months I have been to Prague, Munich, Salzburg, Paris, Zermatt, Bruges, Edingburgh and London where I was able to use my Cap1 card 99% of the time even in little towns along the way. 2.) If he doesn't want to open a bank account you might want to consider getting a TravelEx Chip card. It's reloadable like a secured credit card. I'm sure they charge a fee but I can't tell you what it is. Hope this helped a little!

The Travelex Cash Passport, which is a chip and pin card, has a roughly 10% cost over the interbank rate. That's ok for short trips where you might need the chip & pin, but not for a student there for 10 months.

We had a bit of chaos concerning "chip & pin technology" with our USBank Flexperk card before our recent trip to Denmark. However... it was USBank that was adamant about us updating our cards to include the chip & pin technology to make transactions easier for us abroad. We resisted because we pay LOTS of our bills with those cards with auto pay. Have you checked with Capital One, told them of your dilimma and asked if they will issue a new card for your son with the chip & pin technology and express ship it to him in Sweden? USBank express shipped our to us at home before our departure. "Seems" Capitol One customer service should be able to help you find a way to help your son spend as much money as possible, thereby increasing their potential for making money on interest charges from his purchases. And if you're not happy with answers you get from the 1st customer service rep, ask to talk to a supervisor... and even a supervisor at the next level up. During our credit card "issues"... by finally talking to a 2nd level supervisor, we got all our needs met AND 7600 flexperks miles as a consolation prize for our "troubles". Good luck!