Here what i did. Have la poste bank account, don’t take their carte bleu / debit card. Just normal for 24/7 withdrawal. Go to bourso bank create account, they don’t have any charge, and give you free visa debit. But you must spend at least 1 euro, if you don’t, there will be charge of 5 euros. You
Really annoying, I used my CA card for a £2 car park charge without thinking and I was aware of the charges. Just a momentary lapse of concentration. My son uses a Revolt card when he comes over to us
Now, if you had a Britline CA card, there would not be any charges…
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That’s interesting, if you are saying that Britline make no charges for buying something in £££’s ???
makes me wonder what their exchange rate is like ???
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I do have a Britline card and just checked my statement- no charge made, just 2:18€ for £2 parking ticket, so even the exchange rate was good!
From time to time I have been in a position when I inadvertently used my CA card (eg when it was linked to a contactless payment with my phone) but that aside I am very diligent to use the right card in the right situation. I have 2 bank accounts - with HSBC in the UK and CA here in France and my pension is paid into the former and I make transfers with Wise as needed to keep the CA account topped up. I also have an Aqua credit card in £, which I keep simply because there is no currency charge when using it overseas and the exchange rates they provide are quite competitive.
And, of course, a card linked to my Wise account which I tend to use for small contactless payments. I have both debit and credit cards with HSBC but use the debit card hardly at all and the credit card only when in the UK (or for online purchases in sterling) as the same problem the OP has exists in the other direction if using my HSBC card in France. Sometimes a credit card is a wise choice of payment method for consumer protection and I will not pay the excessive charges for a credit card issued in France.
Some cards work contactless wherever you are and some are restricted to their home country and the limit, as others have pointed out, is generally €50 in France and £100 or more in the UK. In my case I have two wallets, one for France (and other countries in the EU) with Euro cash and the appropriate cards and one for the UK with sterling cash and cards for UK use - switching when I am in transit between the two (and transferring driving licence etc at the same time). After a while it is habit and almost automatic.
I meant to add. The HSBC account although based in the UK is linked to my French address and so there is no issue with my residency. That can lead to problems, mind, when there is a problem with a card (ie following suspected or actual illegal use) and it is necessary to reset the card over the telephone as a UK postcode is generally needed as part of the security process and a French postcode will not work, even though that is the postcode I have registered with the bank. It can be overcome, but it is tedious.
For those using building society accounts, (eg Nationwide) I was told by Nationwide and Santander that they did not allow overseas residents to keep accounts with them and so had to close both when we changed residence. This is not closely policed and maybe some branches don’t follow that policy so diligently - this is something of a lottery at the best of times.
Nationwide’s website says that EU residents can maintain their accounts but not open new ones. I’m kinda banking on that continuing to be the case.
Entirely possible that when I was told this by Nationwide it was misinformation (everything is down to the person in the branch at times) but with Santander they were more explicit. Funny thing is we never got round to closing that account, although it only has around £50 kicking around in it, and they have not chased it up at all (they told me this maybe 3 years ago) and have even been sending update messages regarding their app etc.
R
You can definitely keep your Nationwide account. They have our French address because I was completely upfront with them when we moved abroad. We’ve had no issues at all.
Santander is a bank, not a building society. I still have an account with them registered to my French address.
We have a CA account with no cards except for a free one to withdraw cash only at the local branch, and a Fortuneo account with a free MasterCard each which we can use anywhere in the world without charges.
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Russellgww - what a complicated life you lead 
It makes no charges if you buy in any cirrency that is in the international exchange rate mechanism!
Many have mentioned Nationwide.
My vote goes to Skipton BS.
But it does. Different firms have different ways of attracting customers, some offer no handling fees while others have lower exchange rates. What matters most at the end of the day is the bottom line, how many euros will your pound buy. If all the exchange rates used were the same firms like Wise who charge a handling fee would get no custom.
I said no ‘charges’. And I did not say the exchange is at the interbank rate.
Looking at my last use of the card in a GBP zone they exchanged about five cents under.
Yes, it would cheaper to use my First Direct card, but I did not have it, apart from which, two cents under for odd usage is not the end of the world - especially as the original conversion was done through TorFX who do not charge any fee othemr than a rate of about half a cent under.
A little question for TorFX users, once you’ve agreed a rate, how long do they give you to get the money to them?
Until quite recently I was able to transfer up to €15k from the Société Générale myself, from the “espace particulier”.
Now for anything over €5k (or something like that, can’t recall exactly) I have to go to the counter and fill out a paper form. And the transfer seems slower than when I did it myself.
So I’m just wondering how long TorFX “hold” the promised rate for you.
24 hrs I think
OK, thanks Adam.
I’m not at all confident the Soc Gen would get the funds to them in 24 hours.
Yes, I think so too, but I find no problem with that even though my UK bank won’t allow me to transfer more than £1,000 a day, so I would face a difficulty if I wanted to buy more than that.
Just remembered that my previous transferer, Worldwide, held the rate until almost any specified date. I used to buy £5,000 at a time and the completion date was 5 days hence. The man I used to deal with there has moved to another company and assures me that the same policy applies, but I haven’t tried them yet.