Power of Attorney. Foreign people who have a bank account in Italy and are in need of transferring funds to their country’s bank account

During the days of Coronavirus, I thought about writing this text because I had some requests from foreign people who have a bank account in Italy and are in need of transferring funds to their country’s bank account or to make payments to third parties, not being able to travel.

In fact, some have not been able to request a money transfer to their Italian bank due to simple linguistic reasons. Others, however, have Italian current accounts that do not allow International money transfers with home banking accounts.

The solution to these problems is to give a special special Power of Attorney to a trusted person in Italy. For those who do not have a
trusted person to whom to entrust such a delicate task, I would recommend giving the power of attorney to an Italian lawyer; this will
allow you to be sure of the correct execution of the mandate and various other guarantees.

The power of attorney must be signed before a notary or in front of the Italian embassy in your country. In some countries, it is possible
to have the subscription authenticated by other entities; for example in England the is the Commissioner of Oaths.

Once the Power of Attorney has been signed, it will be necessary to obtain the Apostille (depending on whether you are in one of the countries signatories to the Hague Convention).

The Apostille a specialized certificate, issued in UK by the Foreign Office. The Apostille is attached to your original document to verify
it is legitimate and authentic so it will be accepted in one of the other countries who are members of the Hauge Apostille Convention.

In some cases, the Apostille is not necessary (as in the case of PoAs signed in Belgium or Germany).

I always recommend, before visiting a notary in your country, to agree on the text of the Power of Attorney with your Italian bank, so that you don’t undertake the risk that, after having done the PoA, the Italian bank can dispute that the power of attorney does not contain all the necessary wordings.

I also recommend wording the text in two languages (Italian and English) so that on the one hand, the notary abroad understands the
text he is authenticating the subscription for and on the other,.the italian bank can use it as is. Instead, in the event that the power of
attorney is drawn up only in a foreign language, the Italian bank, in order to be able to use the PoA, it will be necessary to have a sworn
translation before an Italian Court. This last procedure is, therefore, more complicated and expensive and, this is why I always
advise to do the power of attorney in double language from the beginning.

Finally, in the event that the current account in Italy is no longer needed, I recommend  you to include in the PoA also the power to close the account, so that this does not generate other costs, unnecessarily.

I hope this text has been clear and useful to you, in case you need further information, do not hesitate to contact me through my e-mail.

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