Hello everybody on this joyful day when Mr Hubris, the man who would be king, finally ran out of zipwire.
All the fault of the Parliamentary Conservative Pary, and absolutely nothing to do with his personal standards od behaviour.
Ooops, I digress.
What I would like to know is whether a single on-line bank account like Boursorama can totally replace a traditional bank account?
Thanks in advance for any advice.
No reason why not imo. The only thing I can think of is whether they provide a cheque book or not which may (or may not) be an important feature for you since cheques are still de rigour en France (but with diminishing reliance).
Our cheque book is seldom used these days… paying money in to Banque Postale for Livret A accounts; Dr for RDV and the heating engineer for aircon servicing. Other times we try to pay by online banking direct to the merchant’s bank account.
That’s a good point. I hadn’t thought of that, and I do occasionally use cheques. Thanks.
I have just checked, and Boursorama do apparently supply a cheque book. Free.
Yes. Its just a bank - if your income includes cheques it may be a pain … mine doesn’t so never checked how you pay one in.
In reality used alongside wise/revolut its a decent product - cheque books are slow to be issued though - its a common complaint about them
I am with these, they are very good. https://www.hellobank.fr
If you prefer a proper bank La Banque Postale, https://www.labanquepostale.fr/, are good and usually lower charges than the likes of CA etc.
Thanks for your feedback. 
It was a toss up between Boursorama and Hello, and the former comes out just very slightly ahead in all the comparison websites. Hello does very well too.
by which, do you mean a traditional Bricks and Mortar bank?
AFAIK Boursorama are otherwise a “proper” bank regulated by BdF…
Yes, I meant a high street bank you can walk into.
I think Bousorama are only an online facility… (as indeed Hello Bank).
Yes, that’s right. They are.
Correct!
I dumped my Credit Agricole account several years ago and switched to Boursorama. I’ve not had any problems with the account. They give you a cheque book and I receive an e-mail each time one of those cheques is debited. For cheques you may receive, you log them in the online system and then need to post them to Boursorama as they have no high street presence (despite being owned by Soc Gen). The phone app is fine for day-to-day account information. But at first I found the web online system took a while to understand completely and some options, such as downloading printed statements/.xls/etc files .
I did notice in Paypal’s ts and cs for France that they won’t allow to set up online-only banks on there - you can only link bricks and mortar banks.
Which comparison sites are people using for things like this?
PS if hello.fr and Boursorama are top, what kind of feedback does Orange Bank get? IIRC @kirsteastevenson may have commented she found Orange Bank OK
I see boursarama have a 150 euro offer at the moment but only till Monday
I have accounts with Fortuneo and Boursorama. Both have some great features and some annoying ones, but both are good banks and do chequebooks among other services.
The day before yesterday I opened a Boursorama account with no problem. It was accepted within an hour subject to transferring an initial 50 euros.
Yesterday I applied for one for my husband, so that we can eventually have a joint account. Within half an hour it was refused. Our circumstances are identical, same source of income, same address, same email address and phone number (as he doesn’t speak French I deal with that side).
I phoned to enquire as to the reason for the refusal. They said he had to speak to them. This morning we phoned, I acted as translator, and after he had given his name, they said they could not divulge the reason for refusing the account. They said it was nothing to do with the documents I uploaded, nothing to do with the fact we share the phone and email address, and anothing to do with his age, and there was no point in applying again because he would definitely be refused. He has never had any banking problems in France, so I’m at a loss to think of the reason for the refusal.
Any ideas, anybody?
Obviously there is no point in trying again with them, but we specifically wanted to set up a joint account so that we could both close our current accounts elsewhere.