Pleasant surprise from a french bank

[Kong]

For some time transfers from some English banks have been extremely rapid, often a few seconds. Whereas in france it is seldom on the same day which can play havoc with cash flows.

This morning I was making a transfer between one of the CA banks and BNP Paribas and was offered for one euro a guaranteed transfer in LESS THAN 10 SECONDS!

[idun]

We still have to pay our french banks for our privilege of having an account with them...... so they are, well, choose your adjective, something suitably bad. HOW dare they charge extra for just getting on with their jobs.

So yes, I too am surprised, just not pleasantly.

[Daft Doctor]

Yes, it's terrible that you have to pay to get a fast transfer, it doesn't cost them any more, that's for sure. On the other hand idun, free banking is available in France. Mrs DD and I bank with Axa Banque, no charges whatsoever, and a free gold Visa card as long as we spend over 900 euros per quarter (which in Haute Savoie isn't difficult). we moved from Banque Populaire des Alpes a few years ago, and it saved us the over 250 euros per year we were paying in charges..........

[mint]

Food for thought, DD.  I am fed up of paying charges, especially for a carte bleue which we might use 3 times a year.  I shall look into it.

[idun]

I doubt we could change banks now as we live in the UK and have no french residence. I might have a look at it.

We do use our french account quite a lot what with the pensions going into it, so we need a french bank account and french cards.

But these payments should just go through quickly, always if done on line. Charging, they are simply being greedy.

[Cathar Tours]

Try N26 which is internet only and you can choose the main currency. Where you live in Europe (that's Europe and not the EU) does not matter. Takes a couple of days to open on the internet and it's free if you can cope with a clear basic card. I have put GBP and Euros into the account with no fee. Taking out in another currency is interbank rate plus 1.7% commission which is not bad. The only catch is with the basic card you can only hit an ATM six times a month. Here is a UK review but there are loads of very good reviews on the internet. I have heard that there is a new UK bank (as in new bank and not part of a UK bank) doing the same thing but I can't remember the name.

https://moneycheck.com/n26-review/

[Cathar Tours]

I found the UK one if your intrusted it's called Starling. https://www.starlingbank.com/

Wirth a look if your UK based.

[pomme]

I use the UK Monzo and Revolut for internet only banking. And Boursorama for internet banking in France.

I use Revolut for currency transfers from UK to France (usually £500-1000 to top-up my French account for special purchases). The Revolut exchange for most currencies on weekdays (Mon-Fri) are at the instantaneous interbank exchange rate.

The last couple of transfers I've done only took a day in total. A transfer from my Lloyds account to Revolut, conversion by Revolut into euro and then the transfer to Boursorama.

For those living in France, I moved from Crédit Agricole a few years ago as I got fed up with their poor service and slow transfers. Boursorama is free if you keep a large enough balance and for a deposit 5000€ (in Livret A) you will get a gold Visa card.

[BritinBretagne]

My daughter uses Starling and really rates it highly. It was particularly useful when she was working in Switzerland. I looked into getting one but as they are only available to UK residents I tried Revolut instead. I found it really clunky to use and closed the account after about one day.

[pomme]

I prefer Monzo to Revolut for general use and I also prefer their app. But I now only use Revolut for interbank transfers to France. Monzo were (and probably still are) using TransferWise as an intermediary so it was slower and more expensive as TransferWise charged a fee.

As an aside, the German internet-only bank N26, which is also in France, is closing its UK operation due to Brexit as it only has an EU banking licence https://news.yahoo.com/n26-brexit-leaving-uk-quitting-144104525.html

[suein56]

pomme wrote : As an aside, the German internet-only bank N26, which is also in France, is closing its UK operation due to Brexit as it only has an EU banking licence https://news.yahoo.com/n26-brexit-leaving-uk-quitting-144104525.html

Exactly .. it will be disappointing for some and confusing for others to see just how Brexit is going to impinge in and on the daily lives of quite a few UK residents.

[idun]

I won't be disappointed....I imagine that there will be much confusion though and here is an example of a current debacle I am encountering.

I use currency fair regularly to transfer money back to England. Initially i was transferring to Ireland, then they changed to Barclays London, and since the back end of last year to Frankfurt.

And these internal euro zone transfers between France and Germany do not go through properly, somewhere in the system they can't be hassled (other adjectives can be used!l) to put all my details through. Yes, this is a SIMPLE zone transfer.

I have to do all sorts of ridiculous things that I should not be doing so that my details can be recognized, otherwise there are big delays in processing my transfer.

Confusion reigns already, more will just be par for the course. I expect nothing less and it won't be me who'ĺl be confused.

PS

My banque insists that they are not to blame, as does the German bank.

[pomme]

I've now seen comments they are possibly using Brexit as an excuse. They didn't fully launch until the end of 2018 in the UK so after the referendum. They probably had less than 200,000 accounts in the UK - but how many were active? So possibly they weren't winning customers in comparison to Monzo/Revolut growth.

I wonder whether the recently launched RBS/NatWest digital bank Bó https://wearebo.co.uk will survive?

[Kong]

I have read elsewhere that N26 are closing all UK accounts.

[Cathar Tours]

This is probably because of Boris and fishing rights. No fishing rights for the EU no passport for British banks and obviously no passport for EU banks in the UK. This is one of the reasons Axa insurance has been quietly selling off it's UK companies and withdrawing back to Europe. We have a few Barclays Banks in Germany and they are closing.

As Barnier says there will be no special deal with the UK re passporting.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/feb/11/barnier-tells-uk-dont-kid-yourself-about-financial-services-deal

It's going to start making life difficult moving money around between the UK and EU if there is no deal. Boris does not even understand what's going on, well he does not appear to. He says he wants an Australian type deal with the EU yet strangely there is no deal between Australia and the EU. They trade on WTO rules at present. Perhaps that's what he means, he does not want a trade deal with the EU. Still that's the UK problem.