hTTi

My husband had a Commerzbank account when we lived in Germany. We moved away in 2022 but he kept the account as he still had some payments going into it until late 2022. The payments finished and he emailed and then wrote to the bank to close his account but he keeps going round in circles with them asking him to post the form - he has sent it twice and can see it has been delivered, but they said they can't acknowledge receipt of any post.

Now today he has received a letter saying:

"Das Angegebene Konto dient als Referenzkonto. Damit wir ihren Auftrag wunschgemass ausführen können, benotigen wir Ihre Unterstützung.

Bitte ändern sie bei ihrem Depot/Tagesgeldkonto oder Schliessfach das Referenzkonto ab.
Bitte reichen sie den auftrag kontoloschuing anschliessend erneut ein."

We have no idea what they mean by change the reference account in your custody account/daily deposit account or safe deposit box (our German language skills have diminished since leaving so I used Deepl to translate). Does anyone have any idea what this means? We've checked his online account and there is very limited information - just details of one account. Would appreciate any advice (short of travelling back to Germany to close it in person)?

They seem to think that you have - additional to your Commerzbank current account (Girokonto) - also an interest-bearing "easy access" account (= Tagesgeld) which points towards the current account.

If you don't have such a Tagesgeld account, simply tell them.
Though you may have opened a Tagesgeld account without realising it, in that case, just tell them to close both the Girokonto and the Tagesgeld.

Just as a hint: If closing an account is a problem, just wait for them to send you the usual "changes in T/C"-letter... That happens about every year.

Send them a "Ich akzeptiere die neuen Bedingungen nicht" ("I do not accept the new T/C") letter, that basically forces them to close the account.