Issues with CA (& brief description of Britline)

Whereas, I found Pacifica superb. When my town was flooded, me and others who were with Pacifica were getting our new fridges, washing machines etc delivered within a couple of weeks, while some folks were still struggling with their forms and hunting for receipts.
I felt quite guilty actually - I’d had my home insurance with mma for 10 years and never needed tp make a single claim, swapped tp CA in the March and in the June, claimed thousands.

We’ve always found them helpful,

https://www.britline.com/

https://www.britline.com/

gracious… not worth trawling through that lot… too busy…

can’t you simply tell me … is it only online… or can you visit a branch and speak face to face ???

How do you pay cash/cheques in??

Its online but you can use any CA branch for paying in cheques or cash or face to face. You communicate in English with your assigned Britline adviser either by email or phone, The current account comes with a cheque/paying in book and a Carte Blue debit card which can be used in any ATM. We have also set up a savings account which you can do online or by phone. You can have any of their other financial products insurance mortgage etc tho some are only for residents. You can transfer money internationally in or out, You can set up direct debits and do on line payments.

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Very interesting… cheers Pete…

I’m not sure of the exact legal relationship between CA Britline and CA Normandie but they are effectively an Anglophone store-front (and English speaking helpline) for CA Normandie.

The online banking is basically just CA Normandie’s (in French!)

We bank with them and have had no problems beyond some of the (to a Brit) sillier French banking stuff such as having to pay extra to temporarily increase the amount we could spend per month on the debit card, or to do online payments :angry:

You can certainly find people snarking about them online (which is why I made the comment which I suspect led to this thread) but I suspect that is true of any bank, anywhere.

Mmm… sounds like Britline and “normal” CA have very different charging set ups… amongst other things…

It obviously will pay to read the small print for both banking set-ups… before deciding which way to jump.

(me, I’m happy with our local CA especially now I can speak French … and… now they are offering to speak to me in English :rofl: )

Interesting - care to share?

Well, I do online payments for no charge… we had our Debit card limit increased for no extra charge… :thinking: I was mortified when our DCard was refused… thankfully had the cheque book and all was well… but I was red-faced with embarrassment. Seems CA start folk off with just a small limit… to see how things go and what they feel one can afford… We no longer need the high limits they agreed to give us… but I keep them just in case OH falls in love with an expensive bit of machinery… :rofl: :hugs:

Perhaps because we are Resident and have our money in France… does that make a difference… no idea… :thinking:

Just to be clear I don’t mean online payments with the debit card but making an online payment to someone using their RIB.

Is there a cost to use Britline? Do you, or anyone have a professional account as well as Britline?

I’ll check the website - thanks for that

Yep… I thought that’s what we were talking about.

Just to be clear… are you with Britline. I am NOT with Britline but I am with an ordinary branch of Credit Agricole.

I’ve answered my questions afte having reviewed the web site - thanks!!

I am not yet with CA

We pay the same with Britline as we would if we transferred to local CA branch. So we haven’t bothered as the number of times we need to talk to our bank face-to-face has so far been zero in the 20 years we’ve had the account.

Been with CA for the 18 years we’ve had a second home in a Normandy. Never used Britline, no complaints about using CA - other than the 9 euros charged to our account each month for the account. Useful App for easy access to accounts online.

If you are paying 9€ per month and don’t feel you are getting value for money… why not discuss with your Personal Banker at your local branch.

We do pay a fee for the pleasure of having a Debit Card and there is a rebate (or there was) every time one used the “hole in the wall” yippee…

The card fee means we get lots of other stuff for free… like placing a Stop on a cheque (although only had to do that twice in many years)… all in all, it seems to work well for us.

Hmmm, well, just noticed that Britline have charged us 42€ (why 42 when the website says 41 I am not sure) for the privilege of having a debit card.

That really is taking the piss a bit

What are good recommendations.

How easy is it to switch bank accounts in France these days - and automatically move DD’s etc?

Is that the fee for issuing a card? Most banks charge that. You pay it when a new card is issued, then each time it expires and is replaced. Normal