Upon arrival, all students will open an account with the Banco Central Hispano, Spain's largest bank. There is no charge for opening this account, and balances carry no interest. Students will not have checkbooks but will have an ATM card that enables them to withdraw funds for any Banco Central Hispano in Spain. The administration of Colby in Salamanca uses these bank accounts to deposit monthly allocations and other refunds into student accounts. Students may also deposit personal checks into their accounts, and will receive monthly statements.
All dollars buy euros as the prevailing rate, which changes daily.
Then the euros are changed into pesetas, at a rate that was fixed in January 1999 and does not change. In practice, when a student deposits a check into the bank account at Centro Hispano, or uses an ATM machine with a US card, they will not notice this procedure. Most apartments have phones for incoming calls only. More information on portable phones will be made available to students upon their arrival. There is no internet access from these terminals.