Hi Folks,
I expect to close on my ‘new’ (to me) house soon, it’s in the south of Deux Sevres.
I’ve been told I will need a French bank account for several purposes including paying bills. I used to have an HSBC account in France maybe 15 years ago and I currently bank with HSBC in the UK. My thoughts are that (if it’s anything like 15 years ago) I should be able to go to my local HSBC and ask them to open an account for me in France. It was a doddle to do so 15 years ago.
My house is in southern Deux Sevres and the nearest HSBC branch is in Poitiers, an hours drive away. Since I have very seldom needed to actually go into my branch, I’m thinking this won’t be a problem. Would you agree?
Also, if you have any more recent experience with HSBC in France, was it positive or negative.?
Would you recommend another bank instead of HSBC?
Any and all advice welcome 
I have no experience of HSBC.
However if you’re happy dealing with your bank entirely online/by phone/letter etc,(have a good command of banking French - see below for Credit Agricole’s Britline) I agree you don’t need to be physically near your bank branch. I’ve never in my life visited either my UK or my French bank branches!. There are other people on this forum who clearly prefer the face to face interaction with their banks.
What does matter (for me) is that the bank branch is responsive and helpful. I have found Credit Agricole’s Britline service to be consistently excellent. It’s a branch staffed with about 60 bilingual employees (in Caen, Normandy) who are very responsive and proactive, and handhold (if needed) through the extensive requirements to open accounts, savings and investments etc. Their banking app is also quite good and is also in English if needed. It doesn’t matter where you live/have a house in France if you use Britline.Making the general situation more complicated (!) some banks, including CA, are regional, even if nationally branded.
I strongly suspect you will find opening any account far from a doddle now, sadly, thanks to anti money laundering checks etc. Britline had 2-3 pages of requirements for identification (payslips, P60s, passport, current bank statements etc etc) but ALL of this can be done online, remotely. It was very helpful indeed to have the account(s) open and ready for when our house purchase transaction went live.
Two final observations. If you need to withdraw money regularly from a cashpoint machine, many banks seem to charge, after a few ‘free goes’ if that machine is not from their own network. Cheques are also far more commonly used and accepted here in France than in the UK.
Good luck with the completion on your house.
I bank with La Banque Postale, an office in almost every town and village, and it is national, not regional as I think all the other banks are.
Opened the account there many years ago after terrible experiences with CA and have had no problrems since.
Hi @Mike313
It might be an idea to check which Banks will be local to your “new” house…
sometimes for us “foreigners” it is handy to have-dealings/talk-things-through face to face … and not needing to go far might come in handy.
just a thought
EDIT: although, as you won’t be here fulltime (?), an on-line such as @_Brian suggests might well be sufficient.
I used to bank with my local Credit Agricole (I’m in the south of Vienne 86 so fairly close to your new house). I’ve now moved over to Revolut, with a proper French IBAN etc. I pay all my bills using it and find that their app gives me better control over my account. Also transfers from uk accounts are much cheaper and faster.
One of the reasons I gave up with CA was the frequency with which they pestered me for meetings so they could try to sell more products.
As an aside, aren’t HSBC in the process of selling the french operations? I know when Barclays did the same people’s accounts/ procedures stayed the same for a period then things started to change as they inevitably do as the bank shifted focus under new owners.
The new owner seems to be this business My Money Group, undertake together to advance and achieve your projects
Yes, it does (at least, I haven’t found a fee-less one yet) but I hardly ever use cash - I obviously have assisting to be a monarch…
I might draw out 50€ twice a year so I’m not too bothered about a charge of 2€…
That’s an interesting point @_Brian and @David_Spardo - use of cash!
For me, I withdraw quite a lot each week as we buy most of our food at the local markets and I also pay in cash in shops if its a smallish sum, to save the shopkeeper the card processing charges. So I suppose the conclusion is based on how you operate while you are in France and we all appear to have widely varying preferences 
Me too, but some of the traders now accept contactless payment so cash is less essential.
Yes. The process is all but concluded, you know staff consultation, etc. etc. They tell me nothing will change but we’ll see. The single online/app view I have of my French and UK accounts for example.
La Banque Postale do not charge to withdraw cash from their machines.
Also, they allow 5 withdrawls a month from any other bank’s machines.
Some of the online only banks also allow free withdrawls from their ‘parent’ banking group (e.g. Hello Bank is part of BNP).
When we looked into this 2 years ago, HSBC were only interested if you were extremely wealthy - and we have HSBC current accounts.
We used britline in the end, and while possibly not the best value, did help quite a bit. There was still some French legalese to manage.
Where we are it’s only only les vendeurs de fromages, bouchers and charcutiers who’ are sans contacts - but all threes’ sales often greatly exceed the sans contact limits, particularly during the last tourist season when I’ve seen quite a few people buying €100+ amounts of cheese and twice that amount of charcuterie de canard.
When I go to the local markets , one of my aims is always to get rid of as much ‘shrapnel’ as possible, but am often thwarted because many producteurs round down their prices so that they don’t have to deal with it.
I’ve only bad experiences with hsbc. Rude as I’ve ever experienced and no way of complaining.
ÇA Britline, on the other hand, have been great.
They’re not the only option, of course, but they’re a good start until your French is good enough for banking.
Yes but I have no need of them because whenever I want cash I can nip down to the village agence postale. OK so only business hours but when the business hours are 6 half days a week and 6 and a half days at the main office 4 kms away it is no problem.
I only use cash for coffee in the bar and at the boulangerie. At the latter I now buy a few extras a week which takes me over her lower limit but she never seems to have any tickets in the machine for receipts. Not sure if that is deliberate or not to stop us using it. The barber lady has given up the machine as too expensive for her, so it is only cash or cheque when I go for my cut and beard trim next Tuesday.
Firstly, a big Thank You to everyone who replied and gave their opinion. It really is heart-warming that so many people take the time to be helpful 
Reading some previous banking-related threads, I notice some people talking about Starling Bank being helpful. Has anyone any experience with Starling? I think they are UK-based so may not give the French IBAN number that some people say is essential . . . . any thoughts?
Starling are good. The app is efficient and they have good security. You can use a PC if you prefer, but you still need a smartphone to set up the account and access it on the pC.
You can certainly make non-Sterling payments, but they charge a fee. I don’t know if they will allow you to set up automated payments in a foreign currency.
Sounds like you are new to France ? One simple question which might be an obstacle is your residency status here. There is little or no loyality to banks in France UK now. In your circumstances I would prefer to open an account at the nearest convenient French bank to your new home.
Although, as you say, you very rarely have had need to visit your previous bank or consult them this does not mean circumstances might arise when you need direct contact with your branch Manager. It is always useful to build up a relationship with him/her (although they shift them around every 3 years or so).
Although no help to you I had a horrific problem of remitting legal overseas account directly to my second account here. Due to “money laundering laws” they blocked the funds despite my showing my bona fide. It was only after explaining my predicament with my helpful Lady Manager of my second BNP account without "batting an eyelid "she allowed me to transfer the funds to them. A sigh of relief ! She knew & trusted me over time.
Some people mentioned using Britline (Credit Agricole) which is based in Brittany/Normandy. My experience is that French banks are set up regionally so if you go into a Credit Agricole in Bordeaux they say you have to go to Normandy for any significant banking needs. For instance if you wish to make a large withdrawal you cannot just walk into your local CA branch even though it is all part of the same group.
If I am correct about French banks operating regionally rather than nationally then you may want to open an account locally unless speaking English is an important factor.
I also agree Revolut & Wise are good options though there are some constraints not having a branch network in France.