I’ve opened an account with Boursorama. Very straightforward. I have a bank card and a chequebook on the way.
However, today I tried to access my ‘Espace Personnel’. That’s where there’s a problem.
Before I can access my Espace Personnel, I have to Actualiser mes Informations. Most of the questions I can understand, but there are several boxes where I can’t find the answer, or even understand the question, and I cannot go beyond that page.
Can somebody please be kind enough to talk me through this?
It isn’t really a question of translating, I understand the words, I don’t understand how to answer the questions!
First question I don’t understand: Êtes-vous assujetti à l’IFI ? What is IFI?
Second question: Quel est votre secteur d’activité ? I’m retired, I don’t have an activity, and none of those suggested apply. Should I just pick one nearest to what I was before I retired?
Regime matrimonial: Communaute de biens - Separation de biens - Communaute universelle - Autre contrat - Participation aux acquets We are simply married under English law, so which to tick?
Repartition votre patrimoine: Liquidites - Biens immobiliers - Contrats assurance vie - Placements financieres - Autres. The total has to add up to 100%. I don’t know what exactly this means.
This is just a financial status questionnaire. I don’t think it has any real legal status except for you to given them some idea of your finances
IFI is Impôt sur la Fortune Immobilière which you will have declared when you completed your tax forms - there is a box on 2042 to tick and then a supplementary form. Basically property assets of over 1.3M euro
-The usual answer for Regime matrimonial for those married under English law is Separation de biens
-The Repartition votre patrimoine is just the percentages of each of your financial assets which, added together, make up to a total of 100%.
I’ve managed to get through that page at last. It kept deleting information and asking for it again. And having given that information again, it would delete some other information. Again. And so on ad infinitum.
It seems to be satisfied with the information I’ve given it now, although I had to be slightly creative in choosing a Secteur d’Activite as I don’t actually have one.
I can’t see the original questionnaire any more in my account.
But the answers now seem to be listed under Mon profil | Mes infos personnelles et professionnelles.
Under Ma situation professionnelle it now shows
Retraité ou sans emploi - Oui
Profession - sans
Employeur - sans
Quel est votre secteur d’activité - Autre activités de service
As you should now be able to access that page, you could update it if you wanted to?
I’ve never been queried about any of that information and I don’t remember having had any periodic requests to update it. Possibly because they don’t have any financial services they could sell to me?
BNP’s app has just started demanding I give them extra information along similar lines.
Last time I was in the app I tried to give them all “None of your business” answers. But one or two of the questions didn’t have such options. So I couldn’t save it and get rid of their banner demanding I give them info that I view is none of their business, as I’m not asking them for a loan. Nor am I doing any unusual transactions and nothing that could possibly raise any concerns such as money laundering.
They have some text hinting they ask for this info for regulatory reasons. But my other bank hasn’t asked for any such information and this looks to me to be them just profiling me for their own marketing purposes.
BNP won’t let me save the page and there aren’t enough ‘none of your d*** business till I ask you for credit’ answers available. So after 11 years with BNP and being charged their ripoff fee of 2,50 Euros monthly for nothing, I am now considering closing the account.
Unfortunately, I think you will find if you switch to another bank you will be presented with a similar set of questions. These “getting to know you” type questionnaires seem to be common in financial services.
I’ve just gone back and looked at the Boursorama page I mentioned earlier and it states:
“Vous vous engagez à nous fournir des informations exactes dans les conditions fixées par les Conditions Générales. Vos données personnelles sont protégées et vous pouvez exercer vos droits selon les termes des Conditions Générales BOURSORAMA et notamment à l’annexe intitulée Protection des données personnelles.”
The regulations state that financial establishments should collect all informations needed to evaluate your wealth and incomes. This, on order to check that your deposits are compatible with your official situation, and not the result of illegal activities.
Questions may be irritating to some of us, but legitimate however…
Sorry Roberto, they are just using that as an excuse.
If they have some activity on your account they feel is unusual or if I’m asking for credit then they would then have the right to ask relevant questions.
BNP are on what we call in England a ‘fishing trip’ and even HMRC, with their great powers, is not allowed to do those. Plus my other bank here in France which has also known me for the same 11 years, has asked no such thing.
PS and if someone believes in bank secrecy then they also believe in fairies.
