With the new job started and the househunting finished succesfully, the one thing I got left to arrange is to open a Spanish bank account. As I am in BCN, some of my colleagues recommended La Caixa because they have by far the most ATMs in Catalunya. I heard though that Santander would be generally the best bank. For me the most important thing is reliability of the ATMs and if possible a free-of-charge cash withdrawal or one at the lowest possible rate, as I use ATMs rather often (I dislike to have a large sum of cash on me so I prefer to use the ATM on frequent basis for withdrawing lower amounts)

So which bank is generally reliable and has low fees for using the ATM machines? English speaking staff in the branches would be a huge bonus although I realise this will very likely not be the case with any bank (except for maybe a few very centrally located branches) and I can always ask a colleague to translate whatever is needed so the ATM rates and the general reliability are priority for me.