Hello all,
We use Credit Agricole for both business and private banking. Been with them since 2002, they were the only bank in our village at the time. You can easily move money online, the also for a English version online banking Britline - have never tried this though, Sadie
:o)
Hi Jon,
I am going through the same thing at the moment - I have my first cheque and nowhere to put it! I have 3 appointments on Wednesday but I think La Poste is going to be the winner as they have an offer at the moment with no āholdingā charges =, which is what LCL and others want to charge 20ā¬ for, before they start charging for cards and so on.
i have been with Credit Agricole for over ten years, never had a problem, the online service is ok I can do everything I need to do. you can make transfers to external accounts, but you have to sign up to the service.
I have used a Credit Mutuel account for the past five years and love how easy their on-line banking is- I have to agree with Jacqueline that you only get ācurrentā info, but there is a messaging facility which is super handy, basically you can send an email request direct to your adviser/personal banker and mine normally replies within an hour. Not bad.
āBritlineā which is Credit Agricole - they are English speaking and can help with almost anything - weāve arranged our house and car insurance with them as well as our banking - and we opened the account whilst still in the UK that was 6 yrs ago now and I wouldnāt change.
Hello. Iām new to the forum so hello.
Sara, I agree Britline have proven to be excellent friendly and their online is pretty good. Also if you do need to phone they are very ācustomer freindlyā in my experience.
I use HSBC in Toulon. They are one of the few international banks available and the service Iāve had from them is better than any I received back home. If Toulon is an option for you then talk to Vincent Laupies. He has really gone out of his way to help us. Online banking is great (and in English which is still a bonus for us). If transferring any large amounts of foriegn currency, the rates are about the same as what you see from say Google on the Internet.
HSBC is in Carcassonne. It is a wonderful bank and we know them well.
You could try the Bank Populaire International Branch in Niceā¦All English speakers and I have had great service from them for over ten years.
Opened an account with our local bank of choice, CIC for my eldest daughter. 20 minutes, photocopy of passportā¦ done! She gets her own MasterCard next year (16).
Hi Teresa. Just sent off my CA application yesterday. Took me almost a month to pull all the paperwork together - my bank said they never received my request for a reference, etc. Accountant away on holidays so had to wait for payslipsā¦Anyway, itās gone now. Fingers crossed. How long before you heard back from CA Britline? If I donāt hear from them before I get to France (27th March), I will go to HSBC when I get there.
Rosemary - iām laughing at your reply hereā¦ it took me weeks to get the MOUNTAIN of paperwork together for CA Britlineā¦ and then Lloyds UK could not manage to send a reference - And charged us Ā£10. The french people were so niceā¦ In the end there was much swearing and refusing to leave the bank til theyād done itā¦ Iāll be interested to hear your update and if you do decide to changeā¦ But for now itās a tiny triumph to have today, after nearly 3 months, received a "code confidentielāā¦
Our local branch is Montpellier, we chat to them via email (as its small, itās friendly). They make telephone meetings to discuss applications for other products so you donāt have to go into the branch & you can always post cheques in to them with a covering letter to pay money in rather than going directly. With the world of internet banking you hardly need visit your own bank these days.
When a bunch of us first moved over to work here we used to compare notes on who lost the most/least in our weekly pay transfers (we all sent it to the uk then as we had no idea weād be staying) and I always won with HSBC, lost less than the others every time.
I have to say I had a torrid time with CA Britline. Not only did I provide the mountain of paperwork for both me and my partner, get the references (which Santander refused almost to do for my partner until I browbeat the manager) and they were also very iffy about signing copies of passports etc.
Then, to make it worse, CA Britline said I couldnāt have an account as Iād only been self-employed in Britain for 2 years and didnāt have 3 years of tax returns, BUT theyād open a single account for my partner whoād quit his job and was going to be living off my earnings. How does that make sense??! I would be the one earning and I couldnāt have an account, but he wouldnāt be earning (and even when he was, he didnāt earn as much as I did!!) and he could?!
Anyway, I opened a Banque Postale account. It was super-easy. I have no fees AT ALL (but no card!!) and they were really straightforward. The online banking is fairly limited but you can do basic things (though not like the UK!) Having said this, Iāve noticed that many of my clients are Banque Postale as well, which says a lot about how the French might feel - just going off the cheques Iāve had.
I was party to a conversation about boursarama last weekend with a few French friends who run businesses overseas, and I canāt remember it all except for the fact they seemed very dubious about it all. I remember thinking it could just be trying to hold on to āold-fashionedā stuff - but several of them run internet businesses so are fairly savvy!
HSBC, most definitely!
Opening from the UK is easy with HSBC as they are here too, everywhere, they bought out loads of the smaller French banks a few years ago and standardised them all. Also transfers between HSBC UK and HSBC France are free in both directions. Although we did change to Bank Populaire for our Mortgage here as they offered the best rate at the time, we still use the HSBC accounts for transfers. Both have good internet facilities but with both you need to make the first transfer/payment to any particular account through them (either in branch or by email request) then you can use the internet for following ones to the same account and Bank Pop charge 1 euro 50 a month to use the internet banking. You will pay a monthly or annual fee with every bank here, the amount depends on the type of cards you want and your withdrawal limits required. Also I came here 5 years ago to work together with many brits and all who went to credit agricole soon changed, maybe it was the service they got at that particular branch (blagnac, toulouse) or maybe the endless fees they were charged for everything. Hope that helps some!
HSBC is actually very close to the actual exchange rate. Last week I got 1.187 the actual ECB rate on the day was 1.190ā¦I think thatās close at only Ā£3 difference not Ā£30. Weāre exceptionally happy with the account and compared to all the other ways we tried to move money before (Lloyds International, Moneycorp etc) HSBC is heads & shoulders above the rest from our perspective.
Iām with Suzanne and the HSBC solution - very practical, very easy, you can have accounts in France in both Euros and Sterling and manage almost all of your transactions online. The only issue may be finding a branch in France ānear youā as their branches are not totally widespread.
Hi Suzi
We use HSBC which gives a Global Banking Service so we can move money online between our UK account & French account instantly and see what exchange rate we are going to get before we make the transfer. There are no fees for this service but we do pay something like 11e a month for our bank cards but thatās normal. We used to have a Credit Agricole account which charged us around 8e a month. The instant transfer facility through Global Banking is fantastic & makes life so much easier. Iāve not come across another bank that is so slick.
Suz