ICA Banken Reviews 1,570

Not recommended for those who do not have Swedish citizenship / an ID-card issued by the police, or an existing Mobil Bank-ID.

After being customer for several years I could not apply for a new Bank-ID due to new rules, after I was forced to block my Bank-ID after phone theft. Skatteverkets-ID is not enough anymore - not even in direct contact with the customer service. They themselves recommended me to use another bank for my new Bank-ID.

Worst experience trying to apply loan promise with them.
Applied through internet and got approved with amount and then later called them and asked they said sorry its not approved due to whatever absurd requirements they are putting.
Bad bad experience and I suggest not to go with them.
Good for only running ica maxi shops

I am the author of the last review, I just want to say that ICA Banken has sorted out my issue swiftly and in a very professional way. I really appreciate it and please ignore the complaint letter I sent through the mail. Thank you

The worst ever after i got that my application got accepted and I signed it and it said the payment on the way. oh sudnnly after 4 days got post that oh we need more paper and when i called they said no there no lån going on for you. still when i log in i can see it said its done and singed. By the way the lån was approved and singed. After that i got the post about the paper

Recently got an account at ICA Banken (first swedish bank account) as a EU citizen living in Sweden + university student. I have a personnummer like any other ordinary person residing in Sweden plus have a idkort from skatteverket that I paid the fee for and submitted identity confirming documents for it as well. All as the due legal process states. Now after receiving my säkerhetsdosa, bank mastercard and having the bank account be fully created I tried to request BankID like any other person here in Sweden. However, I am being barred from this crucial service because "not a swedish citizen" even though this service has never been exclusive to citizens and on the same website for BankID it clearly states the only requirements are having a personnummer (which I have) and be a bank customer (which I am). However apparently now that since I am not a citizen of sweden I am being barred from obtaining this service. Called 4x to ICA Banken and got told the same cookie cutter response of "as you are not a swedish citizen you posses no right to obtain this bank related service". Then explain to me how other foreign students (EU and non-EU) with the same documents as me received their BankID's without a hitch and aren't swedish citizens, in one case one even having ICA Banken as well and still getting their BankID. I proceeded to explain how difficult this is going to make my life and got told "not our problem. we suggest you apply for citizenship then" as if there isn't a whole legal due process for that on top of a required time of living here in Sweden before even qualifying. I called 3 other banks and all of them told me that it is not possible for them to be barring me like this since I clearly meet the requirements for BankID they even offered to give me appointments in order to go in and switch banks to them since clearly ICA Banken has no idea how to keep their customers. Just making up their own rules as they go. Thankful that other banks exist and will gladly switch over to since ICA Banken is so unfairly treating me.

Took a loan from ICA Banken, hoping to use it to help avoiding family tragedy (cancer treatment for family member from outside EU). Did not help (patient, tragically, died) - was no use for the loan money, so for the last 1 month trying to re-pay my loan early.

Have sent money back a bit over one month ago: nope, they can't put it against my loan as 'they need to know where money come from'. Well, that's the money you borrowed me. Ok, submitted all documents going 4 months back - nope, still nothing. Waiting for 1 week to get any reply, right now waiting on the phone - 25 min and counting - for someone to pick up.

Usually it takes over 35 min for someone to answer the phone, then they tell me to send more documents, then they don't respond for at least a week, until I call again.

Every time someone new responds to my messages. So I had to re-tell (and re-live) the trauma of losing my 7 yo nephew to cancer (that's what money were originally borrowed for), to 4 different, complete strangers, every time being asked to prove something, even though I had submitted all documents the first time they asked for it.

It was nice of them to borrow money in first place, but I had at least 4 other banks with similar rates I could have borrowed from. I am sort of losing hope that I will be able to close this loan early. Which sucks, as every time they take money from my account (they still doing it, even though I sent them money for the entire loan a month ago - they put it on some sort of deposit account on my name and just keep it there), I have to re-experience trauma associated with passing of my nephew.

Seeing that there are over few thousands of similar reviews, this one probably won't change anything either. Just wish I saw reviews before.

Im literally so mad, Im a student of edsbergsskolan and i went to my daliy visit to ICA in Edsberg but today one of the workers there completly retaliated at me and my friends for absolutly no reason. We went there to buy muffins and he came up to us yelling saying its corona and that we need to social distance and also not to come in here if we are not going to buy anything. It was man about 180 cm and bald. This has not been my first encounter with him he has been rude to me and my friends in the past. I would like if you take action as soon as possible.

Thank you. I would like to remain anonymous.

I've applied through Lendo and this time I chose ICA banken offer instead of Coop (oh my, why did i do this!!!!).

Day 1: I signed with bank ID , they did a credit check and everything on me, I applied for autogiro payments and got approved and everything looked good in their page stating that they have all they need and I should get the loan amount in 1-3 banking days. So I planned accordingly my needs, the reason I need the loan.

Day 2: no new updates everything looks fine on both the App and their ICA banken website. No action is required and I am waiting for the amount to be available.

Day 3: I called them day 3 just to make sure that everything is in place and they ensured me that the amount will be in my ICA account that same day or the day after.

Day 4: FOUR days later I got a message that they need my ID and that they have sent a letter by POST which I need to sent back!!!!
I called them again and they said that this post was sent to me the second day, but then nobody was aware the day I called them and they told me nothing?? and nothing is stated in their website or App!!

UPDATE: it gets “better”. I traveled back home earlier but no post in the morning. Finally the letter arrived just now after 13:00. Now it’s NOT “just the ID” that ICA wants. They require:
- my ID
- a copy of employment signed by my employer no older than 90 days
- the last 3 payslips
- a document from the bank where I receive my salary.
Fun fact: my employer is on vacations.
I cannot describe you with words how frustrated I am right now.

This process is causing me lot of trouble and they should have stated it in the very beginning that it is not a 100% online process and that it requires information send by physical post.

Now I have to change all my plans, personal and financial, travel back home from my vacation because I am not in the city just to receive ICA's post. Then I will go buy a printer to scan and print my ID old school as ICA requires, then send it back and wait for another WEEK. Total waiting time, approximately 10-14 days, not 3 days maximum as they say.

I live in this country for 12 years and this is the very first time that this happens to me.
Who knows, they might need more info, maybe they will require that I go in person to their offices in Borås and submit a DNA test to prove myself.

This is causing me so much stress and trouble wasting my time. It is year 2021 and we are all using mobile bank ID in Sweden. Even SBAB accepts online scanned documents, are we back in the 60s?

What is the point of applying with mobile ID, signing everything with mobile bank, getting a credit check, getting approved, applying for autogiro with my mobile bank id and providing everything and still ICA needs a piece of paper, not even a scan that I can easily send out?

I wish I knew about this so I could have chosen another bank like Coop who do deliver their loans online in 2 banking days.

That is probably the worst bank i have dealt with after living more than a decade in Sweden. I applied online via Advisa for a loan and received numerous offers. I ended up choosing Ica Banken due to what seemed better terms. I got pre-approved for the loan based to the info that i gave and the site redirected me to ICA's contract which i signed and verified that all the info i gave were correct. I got a notification that everything is in order and the loan will be processed and paid in few days. All good and smooth.

Days passed and I would log on daily to check if the loan was paid out. All aspects were marked with an 'ok' sign and that i just had to wait for the payment of the loan. There was also a link there that i could set up already an autogiro so i could pay back the loan monthly automatically from an existing account.

Surprisingly enough and after almost a week of waiting for the funds, I received in my post a letter saying that now ( and after i got approved and i was lead to believe that I am just waiting for them to pay the loan) they needed my salary specification, my bank statements and my arbetsgivareintyg. Never mind that i had already ordered all the materials for our renovation with Ica Banken's loan contract printed at hand.
I dont understand why you fool your potential clients that they are approved, you make them sign a contract and AFTER they have signed, you ask for additional paperwork? I know you might come back with something like 'it is our legal right', but even if that is so, what is the point of putting me through all these hassle and having me turn down other offers just so that you can ask for more paperwork, more back and forward- when i was clearly lead to believe according to all the contracts signed and log-in information to your webpage that i am just to wait for the loan?

At any rate, i completed and send in ALL the paperwork they requested in a timely manner and it goes without saying that, everything that I had sent matched the info i gave while applying for a loan through Advisa. Few days later i logged in again to see what is happening and my entire process and paperwork were duly deleted and removed with absolutely no notification.

Upon calling them I got the answer from a very uncertain service agent that 'my loan was not approved because *maybe* there is paperwork missing'. No, I am pretty sure that I have sent everything in ( and luckily i kept copies of everything that i've sent) and also pointed out that you had already approved my loan with the numbers i entered. What is the reason that i am now all of a sudden not approved having providing back up for the *exact* same numbers? He did not know, it was not his department, he did not have access to that information and i should speak to someone else from the credit department.
-Ok, can you put me through the right person?
-No, they are on lunch/meetings.
-Can you give me a direct number so i can call later?
-It is better you send a message through our webpage and wait for an answer.

Seriously? What a big load of wasted time and misinformation... I completely understand that a bank might need paperwork to collaborate your application. I get it, sure. But i expect that you do it *before* you give me a loan to sign, which lead me to believe that you and i have already entered an agreement. I am not aware of any other bank, through Advisa or otherwise, that will ask for paperwork *after signatures* are given and then on top of that still decline your loan retroactively, even if the paperwork is given according to the initial application. And all these without a reasonable explanation.

That is one wasted credit check that was done on me that lowered my credit score for no reason and a lot of materials that now need to be returned. Word to the wise, if you get a signed loan from Ica Banken you might not have gotten a loan from Ica Banken. Who knew?!

Poor Services, Poor cooperation with customers. Late reply through messages and did not pick up the phone calls, hold it for a long time. I got just a hectic experience. better to avoid this bank.

as many reviewers complain, they are useless. not even a bank.

when you try to call them, they let you wait for more than one hour playing aggressive monotonous sounds which are probably used in guantanamo to torture prisoners. you have to call multiple times because most of the time they will just hang up after one hour wait. you will waste a lot of money and time. they do not care.
when you open the account they ignore the law that they have to accept an eu passport or id. many complaints, ask a search engine, even forbes wrote an article about it 5 years ago? nothing has changed. still illegal practices.

then they block your hard earned money and ask absurd questions: why do you need your money? what do you use it for?
are they insane?
or do they want to steal your funds?
they blame government which is not true. government there does not impose this idiotic nonsense on them.
it is either stupidity or criminal intent.

they are liars. it was not about the origin which was proved and documented. they do not even tell you what they want, they just steal your money.
stay away. avoid

Waited in the phone for 40 minutes. Wanted to have access to our money due to buying a house, apparently this wasn´t possible, the people that were handling this went home and wasn´t even there for a few days. I wanted to speak with someone higher up to address the urgency and they hang up. Really bad.

I previously posted about my last bad experience with ICA Banken TT'ing AUD to SKR in August.

ICA Banken proved very unhelpful when we tried to troubleshoot this problem at both the Australian and Swedish ends without success.

ICA Banken even suggested that I ring the Swedish branch from Australia which I thought was a bit arrogant.

We got around the problem by TT'ing to a separate account at another Swedish bank and that worked fine.

Then, thinking that the cause of the failed TT (some ICA Banken computer failure) would have sorted itself out we sent another TT to the ICA Banken account on October 13.

It worked! Nothing had changed at the Australian end.

So, full of confidence, on November 3 we tried another TT to the same ICA Banken account from the same Australian bank account and the transaction failed again. No details pertaining to either the Australian account or the Swedish account had changed.

So the intermittent fault with ICA Banken's computer systems is back and costing us money.

This ICA Banken is an expensive joke.

We can't afford to continue to use a bank that is unreliable and treats its customers like garbage.

Can anybody in ICA Banken explain why their systems are prone to intermittent failure?

Can anyone tell me if the Swedes have a banking regulatory authority or Ombudsman that I can complain to about this shoddy, time wasting behaviour.

And Thyra, if you want our Swedish partners to contact you, how about providing us with the direct telephone number of an appropriately qualified senior person so we can solve this directly and not get involved with service personnel that are out of their depth and don't understand the concept of problem escalation.

ICA bank is not a bank. After my research has ended at the Uppsala University, I left the country and I am trying to transfer my funds. Some people from "Cross-border Payments ICA Banken AB,504 82 Borås" are making abnormal requirements and asking questions that are not relevant to my request. I know my rights as a customer and they have no right to interrogate customers just because they want to transfer their own funds to their legitimate accounts. Maybe they should stay a market chain only, they have no knowledge about banking.I tell you this as a daughter and sister of 2 bankers in the family.

Had a bit of a burden when applying for a bank account. I was unaware of needing a Swedish ID to retrieve the letters and packages sent by the bank itself, which translated into not being able to get the security device to activate the account when they sent it.

Had an online consultation via Facebook where everything was explained and I was helped to put my account fees on hold until I got a Swedish ID.

My customer service worker (Jessica, 3rd of June 2020, via Facebook) was very patient and clear when resolving my multiple questions, and provided an excellent service and treatment.

I believe it should be helpful to note, alert or require to verify Swedish ID when applying for the bank account so as to avoid these scenarios, but the costumer service provided to resolve the scenario was excellent.

I got a Swedish social security number and i applied on the website for a bank account without credit.

When i was done applying for this the site said good choice choosing us and there will be send papers to you via recomended mail and call our support if you dont have a Swedish id, so i did i got in touch with Elin at customer support.

Turned out that you cant be a customer of the bank if you dont have a Swedish ID even tho you are registred as in Sweden and got a social security number.

There was no reasoning with Elin that just kept saying the same thing that i cant be a customer of that bank, if i get approved on the website and my social security is active why am i not abel to get a normal no credit account for my full time salary,

Should have denied me on the site instead of wasting my time.

I do not recomend this bank or there customer service, when i called them it kept saying 8 mins in queue and no queue number horrible horrible customer service and practices,

Stay away choose anyother bank then this..

I asked to get a survey sent and she just said that only a few people get survey sent and my guess only the few select people that will give 5/5 stars get that.

No stars are awarded from me and i am left horrified after this Experience

Very bad service! extremely unprofessional!
They gave me a lan promise and I went into bidding process to buy a house and won the bidding and signed the contract and paid the down payment but when it was time for providing the papers to the real estate agent.They backed down! Thankfully Swedbank gave me an offer quickly and I bought my house.Otherwise I would have lost a great deal of money to the buyer and had to pay all the real estate agent fees.
Never depend on ICA as first choice specially for bolån, always contact a real bank

This is the bank that will drive you crazy with their customer service. They will make a massive issue from every simple thing. they will confuse you, misinform you, and will drag into their credit plans. Run from them. Now.

I have 2 loans of the same amount but with different banks. Ica Banken their interests are too HIGH compared to the other bank. For example I see that the monthly fee does not lower the balance almost NOTHING.! I will not lend money from this bank any more!!!!