There are over 2,500 commercial banking institutions in Germany today each offering a variety of banking options at around 45,000 branches. That alone makes it hard to know where to begin.

To keep things simple, we surveyed six large, popular and longstanding commercial banks -- Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, Hypovereinsbank, Postbank, Citibank and Stadtsparkasse (Berlinersparkasse for this survey) and one online banking institution, comdirect.de.

This is in no way a complete guide on everything there is to know about banking in Germany. We also would like to caution you to beware of discrepancies in the information that you may receive from a bank representative or a bank's hotline. For example, during the research of this article, we often received different answers from different people at the same institution regarding a particular question.

In fact, when we went back to resolve these discrepancies, representatives from the bank often lacked knowledge on their products. Sometimes, they even became frustrated and hung up on our researchers. As a result, the information we are offering on banks' products and services has been verified by at least two bank officials in the past month.

Particularly for foreigners, opting for one of the larger and more popular banks may be the wiser choice. These banks have more experience working with foreign customers as well as with foreign banks and are often more accessible.

For example, Citibank’s Citibest requires a minimal balance of €2,500 but the deposits earn 3.25 percent interest annually. If you are poor, the bank charges €9.90 a month for its special account for people with irregular or no income (Einzelabrechnungskonto) -- the highest costing at the bank.

Still, Postbank’s Girokonto Plus is free of charge if a minimum of €1,250 is deposited monthly (or a fee of €5.90 applies), the same deal with Comdirect.de with a euro monthly rebate (or a €4.90 fee applies). And Hypovereinsbank’s Willkommenskonto customers have to put away a minimum of €25 per month into a savings account that comes with the Girokonto. With Commerzbank's free account, you have to prove a monthly deposit of €1,200.

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