A friend has recently sold their maison secondaire. They live in Australia and have never lived in France. They have had a bank account here for many years while owning their house and are now looking to temporarily keep the sale proceeds here in France until they decide what to do next. Their bank was local to the house but they cannot offer good rates and the friend would now prefer to have an English speaking bank. I recommended CA Britline and it seems that they will not open an account for them as they are not resident and don’t own property here. Has anyone had experience of this hurdle to jump?
Thanks in advance.
I am not an expert by any means but would an account with one of the multi-currency fintechs such as Revolut or Wise do the trick?
They don’t care where you live, you can hold a variety of currencies including Euros, and you get a VISA debit card.
The only snag would be lack of protection if they went bust but that’s not very likely, especially if your friend just needs to stash the money for a few months.
They’d get a better rate when they eventually convert it into Aussie doubloons as well.
I agree unlikely but personally I wouldn’t leave any amount of money in these relatively new idea banks.
Converting to Aussie dollars seems to be the sticking point as they inform me the current exchange is not good. My view on that is that whenever you exchange there is always a better rate later, gamblers never win.
We were able to open an account with britline before having a house, but it may be because we’re in the UK.
Was that pre-Brexit? I think Brexit was the key difference for UK citizens with this as with so many other things…
Jan-Feb 2022 (we completed early Feb).
Revolut is a bank registered in Lithuania and covered by the EU deposit protection scheme up to 100,000 Euros per person. It only counts as a fintech for UK residents.
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I’ve certainly encountered people (US, Australia and elsewhere) who had been refused by Britline because they were resident neither in France nor the UK.
Good to know!!
They need to check the protection scheme in Australia. You may not want to trust Revolut and that’s perfectly fine, I won’t try convince you otherwise, but the fact that they have an in EU banking license means if you’re with the bank it’s no different to being with Barclays or Credit Agricole, or Bank of America or Santander (the Spanish one), if the very worst should happen government would step in and pay you your cash (within the guarantee limit obviously). If Rev Australia has a decent protection scheme it would be by far the most sensible option. They can keep it euros and convert it when the rate is acceptable. But I’m not familiar with how they’re setup there.
They seem to offer protection to Australian customers
That’s right. It seems to depend on where you are resident. If in the UK you’re not protected, if in Europe you are. You have to check if they have a banking licence in OZ and if so, what protection that gives you if they go bust.
EDIT I see Peter beat me to it.