I think the time has come to find a French bank that is able and willing to offer the services equivalent to those offered by UK banks.
Credit Agricole and i are coming to a parting of the ways. The arrogance of their management, the imposition of ridiculous requlations leads me to search for an institution that is responsive to my requirements and has heard of the words ‘customer service’
I have used Wise for many years but only for fx. Should i use them for retail banking?
I would be greatful of any recommendations.
We left CA years ago and crossed the street to La Poste. Never regretted it. National not regional and even our small village has an agence open 6 half days a week. 
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before launching in to a list of possibilities, what services exactly are you looking for?
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I think it’s pointless saying which bank is best or worse. It depends on the local branch and/or the management team in your locality. I see many complaints about CA but here our local branch is excellent and we have always had responsive and effective dealings with them. Better than NatWest or Barclays were back in the UK.
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I agree. We had terrible problems with the local La Poste (which did seem to be regionally run in Bordeaux) and changed to CA which has been ok so far, not that we’ve had anything complicated to do.
Totally agree, been with CA just over 32 years, always good service, polite staff and now with a new branch down here, can’t do enough for me plus the lady who helped me start again even rang me when I was ill to see if I was OK as I had to cancel a rdv she had set up. English banks, appalling service unless you are wealthy.
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Past usage, for 20-25 years now, indicates that I don’t need a bank in a building with the likes of the fragrant Ms. Martine Maincent as my advisor.
I haven’t been to Lloyds, High St. Kensington, for many years. I only went to the branch of my Spanish bank once in 6-7 years, to sign up. I have had to go into branches - any branch - to do things that Lloyds do online, like change of address. And any branch to close the a/c.
But I do want a FR bank that does what I want, on line. Something that Cred Mute does not do, a ridiculous omission common to all FR banks, I am told, is post a running balance against every transaction on the current a/c. Lloyds and La Caixa do this. All UK banks do, I believe. Why would any bank not do this?
Pleading messages to La Maincent to get their i/t mob to add this simple feature go unanswered. On an occasion when I did have to visit the branch [now 35 mins away] and commented that for me this was an issue worth leaving the bank over, she was shocked.
@graham pointed me at Revolut for FX. Good shout. Now Revolut has given me a FR IBAN #. I didn’t ask. They just did it. I am very pleased they did because it looks as if, with guidance from @graham, I am edging, slightly nervously, towards making Revolut my FR bank.
Nervously because banking with Revolut is done entirely on the app in ones mobile phone. So far, with FX and transfers of money amongst Llloyds/La Caixa/Cred Mute, all has gone perfectly.
However, when I read @graham’s comment that Rev was now in the biz of FR IBANs I went looking for the app on the mob - there it was! Gone!
Getting it back was a bit of a fandago because Play Store would not instal it until I had jumped through security hoops wiith my Google a/c. But it is back and I have a FR IBAN. If I get a plastic debit card andtransfer my d/ds’ - lo! Revolut is my bank in FR.
And I get a running balance with every transaction, so that I can square away on my daily bank rec spreadsheet
Totally disagree. Given that my banking needs are minimal and my visits to branches even more so [see above] the service on the phone by Lloyds C/S is exemplary. And wealthy are not me!
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We are with CA and long ago gave up expecting it to do this, but because we have direct debits set up, we can interrogate our accounts easily online and at the same time they know us and it’s great to be able to pop into the local branch, be recognised and get help, we have found other solutions to do the things CA doesn’t do well (but then neither do UK banks because their rates are the pits).
For us it’s all about being able to move money speedily between the UK and France, with a good rate, on the touch of a computer button. For me, that’s using Wise (Transferwise). Having the two solutions - CA for personal service over 15 years and Wise for speedy movement of money - works perfectly for me.
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Have a look at boursarama -
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Not with La Poste, continuous running balance at any time day or night. I agree about local management etc. and that might have been what was wrong with CA here. Knew the bloke for nearly 30 years and never once got a bonjour out of him in or out of the bank. And then there were the lies, and the fraud, final straw.
Re Revolut, I know nothing of them apart from the fact that they have been given a real roasting on the radio yesterday for not even speaking personally to a customer who had many thousands stolen because of their app being hacked.
I’ll stick with the friendly little lady in our local agence, and the equally friendly, larger, lady in the PO in the next village. Good service every morning including Saturdays, not many French banks can match that. 
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I find Monabanq excellent. Totally online on both a “real” computer & via a 'phone app.
If I have to visit a branch to deposit a cheque or get cash we have local CIC that is linked to them.
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Thanks @Badger. Looks like they are a subsid of Cr Mute, my present bank. Do they do a running balance on current a/c? Wimping out here but do they have an Eng lang version of the website/app?
We went with Britline (CA affiliated) before we moved to France. Excellent customer service and also English speaking. We also have a business account with our local CA branch (34340) and they are equally good.
Cheers - Steve
I am afraid that if you are looking for a French bricks and mortar bank that behaves like a UK bricks and mortar bank you will likely be disappointed. They do things differently. You say French banks do not meet the expectations of you as a UK customer used to UK banks, but you could also look at it the other way round and say that French banks have different expectations of their customers. And realistically the bank is not going to change its processes to suit its English customers. I remember that getting to grips with how banks operate was a learning curve when we first arrived in France, but once the initial misunderstandings had been ironed out and we understood what had gone wrong and why, I have a comfortable relationship with the CA here.
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The same with CA here. The balance updates immediately any transaction is made. I would have thought they were all the same!
I am too leary of operating with just a mob app. I am World Champ of wandering off leaving things behind, commonly a jacket on the back of a chair in a cafe or bar.
I did it twice in the same place last week, when moving from an outside table to indoors and then I would have done it again when leaving if my pal, the manager, had not yelled at me to come back and get it.
My phone lives in a small man-bag. The fave with that one is leaving it hooked over the handle of a smkt trolley. There are some very nice, honest people about …
So I have signed up with Monabanq or, as the online chat chap had it, Moanbanq. I did the same typo when naming the contract download 
They operate with [quote=“Badger, post:11, topic:41781”] a “real” computer & via a 'phone app. [/quote]. That seems safer.
And last but very much not least, the account bal is updated with every transaction. Chapeau!
Parting from the delectable Ms Martine Maincent will be such sweet sorrow - not.
if you use Firefox with Firefox Translations add-on, a page/site in other than English will provide an opportunity to translate it by choice each time it is accessed… extremely useful. I’m sure other browsers have similar add-ons too to make life easy…
Saves having to use Goggles or DeepL 
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I have no use for banks surrounded by brick and mortars, so find Starling is really good. Mobile only, one account in £ and another in euros. Transfer rates around the same as Wise.
I’m very surprised to hear that some banks don’t do that. It’s 2022!
They don’t.
May I gently urge you to persevere with the original version & only resort to translation software as a last resort…?
You will quickly find that the French banking terminology will soon become second nature, which will hold you in good stead if you have to talk to a real person at any stage.