Not directly connected to this, but perhaps better than dredging up an old thread, if I can even find it, but I understand German bank N26 will have FR IBANs for all customers resident in France by the end of the year, adding to Revolut, Bunq and Monese, who already offer local IBANs to french customers without being French banks. N26 have a significant presence here already and I suspect it will grow considerably once people no longer have the issue of having a DE IBAN, especially as they’re a bank so have the FSCS protection. Even more options and less need for those who don’t need branches to have to have a local bank account.
Of course it is - it has to be! One thing I do find here is that French tax returns are a lot more comprehensible than English ones - at least in my experience!
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Nowadays, it’s for receiving a tiny monthly amount… which we use to buy birthday and Christmas presents for UK family members…
Have to laugh if asked the question… “when did you open the account”… as it must be around 40+ years ago… no idea of the actual date… but the French Tax folk don’t seem to mind my vagueness…
and, of course… the French annual Declaration of Worldwide Income … is just that… it’s the whole kit and kaboodle… 
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@JohnBoy is quite right too in that 2 of my 3 small pensions CAN only be paid into a UK bank account. The State one gets paid directly to my French account.
Plus of course as has been said, and shown, many times on here, thanks to brexit it’s becoming more and more difficult to actually open a UK account once you’re not resident, and has also been shown on here, if you close all your UK financial ties and your uk credit report is deleted then even if you become UK resident again it can be incredibly difficult to get back into the system again. Far better to keep things open and keep a credit footprint just in case you should ever need it for any purpose.
My UK account was opened the day after my 16th birthday - easy to remember!
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Mine - 58 years ago, 1965 after I left school and started work at 18. I used to walk down Piccadilly from Green Park to the Midland Bank in the Haymarket. In fact I’m still (in theory) with the same bank - though that branch is long closed and of course it’s now HSBC.
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I recall opening my first Bank Account in 1964… when I started work… for a princely sum of £27 each month.
Mother took £10 for “my keep”… and I had to pay daily travel, lunches, clothes and everything else.
Looking back, I certainly had to watch the pennies and only spent them sparingly.
Great training for retirement in France… 
Of course, OH had his own account too … but at some stage of our married life, we got a joint account… and it’s that one which is alive and kicking today.
In answer to blade we have UK pensions one of which the USS which we are not sure will easily pay into a French bank account. Also we have UK standing orders for various things which would be difficult to pay from France.
In case anyone asks yes all our UK pension income is declared in France using the exchange rate the day it is received in UK
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Hello, not right on either count regarding pensions. My OH does indeed declare everything. Not always paid in euros but then his rates are set so that any bank charges to convert the currency are covered. He has a UK pension as yet not drawn down. Myself certainly of pensionable age. We still have no need to have a UK bank account as we live in France. However, I do agree, others may of course see the need, especially if having homes in both countries or pensions which will not be allowed to pay into a French bank account 
Or pensions that can be paid into French bank accounts but at the time of choosing of the payer, not the payee, in order to get a better rate of exchange.
Another good reason. I neglected my UK bank cards to the extent that I couldn’t use them at all on my recent trip there and had to rely on my French debit card. It worked ok but on my return working out all the different amounts and charges took me 2 hours to reconcile my French statement when it arrived.
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We are all so very different… whether it be personal circumstances, family commitments… or whatever…
So often, what one person sees as totally unnecessary, another sees as absolutely essential… and that is all part of Life’s rich pattern… 
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Yes but I cannot see why the UK banks have to take a perfectly functioning system and change it.
Our UK pensions are paid in, direct debit’s going out and when we need to we move money via a currency exchange provider to France.
What is wrong with that I can’t see how it is Brexit issue all money in UK is accounted for.
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It certainly shouldn’t be - makes no sense at all - but one of the apparent results of Brexit seems to be a tightening up of rules regarding what non-residents can do in the UK. Nobody has managed to explain to me why, but perhaps I’m just dense.
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I can’t say that I fully understand the detail but basically, before Brexit, British banks could serve the entire EU and after Brexit they lost that right. The term seems to be passporting and is now a lot more difficult.
As ever, it’s that we voted for.
Quite right JohnH. Both banks and Financial Services companies that were operating freely in the EU pre Brexit were required to open passporting arrangements which some companies didn’t want to.
The key here is that they need 27 passporting arrangements. As part of the EU, you have a deal with one (the EU). As the UK is no longer part of the club, and a settlement wasn’t reached as part of the exit deal, the UK banks must make an arrangement with each individual country, which all have different requirements for non EU countries. That’s why we’ve seen a few UK banks say “Customers in the Netherlands and Germany have no change. France and Spain sorry you’re gone” or such, they made a decision that it was worth the significant time, effort and expense getting an agreement with countries where presumably they have a lot of customers who make them a lot of money.
Some banks have interpreted the rules in such a way where they basically bury their head in the sand and hope for the best, which is seemingly what Nationwide are doing for example. They won’t rock the boat by offering new accounts to people resident in the EU but are hoping if they keep their head down and just continue as before with those who already have accounts they’ll ‘get away with it’ in effect.
The whole thing is a right mess and it’s entirely down to the UK negotiating team prioritising other stuff like stopping freedom of movement & the whole Northern Ireland farce over protecting one of the UK’s most valuable industries; financial services.
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Thanks Moray for the explination
I am not a banking expert, but I think the difference with Nationwide is that they are not a bank - they are a building society i.e. a “mutual” - they have to go through the “real” banks for actual financial transactions. So they could not get EU passporting rights even if they wanted them.
When I lived in the Caribbean and wanted to send money back to my UK Nationwide account, the dosh had to go from Royal Bank of Canada (Turks & Caicos) to RBC (Bahamas), then to HSBC (New York), then to HSBC (London) and finally to Nationwide in lovely Swindon. Nationwide used HSBC as intermediary for their international banking transactions.
On one occasion my money disappeared somewhere along this chain and did not arrive in my Nationwide account until six weeks after I had sent it… Neither RBC nor Nationwide could trace it, and HSBC would not talk to me because I was “not one of their customers”.
Yup the dreaded passporting. A bit like British people needing visas, so do banks and more importantly financial advisors. . No only is it an ongoing regulatory pain, but also expensive. One article I read suggested the licence started at €30000 a year plus a pro-rata element. Not worth it for a few thousand customers.