Migrant Tales has reported on how difficult it has been for some immigrants to open a bank account in this country never mind get access to online banking services. We learned last week that immigrants are having similar problems with mobile phone operators and obtaining life insurance.
Migrant Tales will send Monday to the Ombudsman for Minorities a list of cases whereby non-Finns have been required to make a 300-500-euro deposit to get a mobile phone line, and even be the bearer of a social security insurance Kela card for two years to get life insurance.
One reader, who is a British citizen, who wrote to us said that in order to get life insurance, Nordea required five-year residence in a Nordic country plus fluency in Swedish or Finnish.
Unbelievable?
Here’s the link with the conditions in Finnish required by Nordea.
Apart from being between 18 and 59 years, it does state that you must have lived five years in the Nordic region and be fluent in Swedish or Finnish to get life insurance coverage from Nordea.
But that’s not all. Another Migrant Tales reader, who is a Swedish citizen, said that he was required to have a Kela card for two years in order to get life insurance at IF.
We hope that the efforts of our readers, and of this blog to address what we believe to be discriminatory behavior by large Finnish companies, will yield positive results.