Living and working in Brussels: Managing your finances

Personal and business finance overview

The important thing to understand is that your knowledge base must be capable of dealing with the fundamentals of financial management.

Ask questions, get advice, and learn the core elements of doing basic business in Belgium before attempting any more complex financial functions.

The fundamental processes for finance are the same in Belgium as anywhere in the Western world. It's important, however, to achieve basic competence in managing routine business.

The basic rule about managing finances for foreign workers in Belgium is the same for expatriates anywhere:

Be careful, and make sure you understand what you need to do.

The global workplace has made things a bit easier for expatriate workers, but you do need to know the local financial system.

Fortunately for foreign workers, Belgian financial systems are very modern and up to date.

You need to know how to handle creating accounts, transferring money, online banking, and the range of obvious domestic money management issues.

Note: You'll need a working vocabulary to manage your finances.

English speakers may trip over some of the terminology, particularly when trying to speak Dutch or French intelligibly. Teller machines are called 'cash dispensers', for example. Also even the idea of 'self banking' may be unfamiliar to foreigners. This is a way of conducting a range of account transactions yourself, using a machine at a bank branch. It's basically an upgraded teller machine, with extra functions.

Creating an account

For the sake of simplicity, you're advised to consider a package account which addresses all your financial needs for your first basic account, before moving on to more complex financial packages. This way you can learn the fundamentals easily.

The good news is that Belgian account packages are highly competitive and come with additional services, and online facilities. This can be a real asset to the foreign worker, trying to balance multiple currencies and international payments.

Paying bills

The routine bills, whatever their nationality, are a menace which is best kept under control with an account with a built in bill paying facility. In Belgium, Fortis Bank, one of Europe's largest banks, provides a bill paying service at its branches, and most bills have a Fortis Bank payment entry on the bottom.

Managing currencies

As a general rule, when in Europe, you're advised to think in Euros first.

For those not used to handling exchange rates, some familiarity with the relative values of the currencies you use is necessary.

Some currencies fluctuate quite a lot in value, relative to the Euro.

In a week, the value of your foreign money can drop quite a lot. The Euro is one of the world's stronger currencies, and if you're balancing payments in Euros with other currencies you can get a nasty shock if you're not careful.

Always keep a close eye on your balances.

Make sure you're holding enough Euros for your needs, and perhaps a bit extra.

Credit and Debit Cards

All the big credit cards are available in Belgium, as well as local and European credit cards you may not be familiar with. These are exactly the same credit facilities you'll have had in your country of origin, so there's no real drama involved.

However-

The trick with credit cards is watching the interest rates and amounts payable. As above, with currency variables, foreign workers can get caught out if they try to cover Euro based credit card payments by converting their other currencies. If you try using a foreign credit card to pay for a Euro based credit card, you can do yourself some real injuries with the foreign card.

One way of avoiding difficulties with credit cards is to use a debit card for budgeting purposes. You can't overspend with a debit card.

Electronic banking

Electronic banking is identical the world over. Even so, it's possible to make mistakes through unfamiliarity with terminology, site functions, and even just misinterpreting graphics on a screen.

You can usually undo anything you do on a screen, but it's still advisable to make sure you know what you're clicking, if you don't speak the language fluently. (If you don't speak it at all, don't click anything, and get some help.)

Imagine the many possibilities of being an English speaking person with a barely working knowledge of Dutch or French, trying to find out where your paycheck went.

It's about as much fun as it sounds, so Be Careful.

Take the time, learn the basics, and build up your knowledge base systematically.

It's not difficult, and you can save time, money and effort.