Can your French bank now take some of your savings?

[tinabee]

Until cheque books are phased out like in the Netherlands

http://www.bankaccountadvice.co.uk/cheques-being-phased-out.html

[NickP]

"The €10 seuil de paiement for the cards"

Use a debit card chancer.  As Norman said,  villagers where I stay wouldn't know what Apple pay etc, is if it hit them in the face. They are still trying to work out what a Euro is in Francs. [:D] Also of course if the cash element was withdrawn, half the French economy, the black, would collapse. That could also apply to most countries. Never going to happen.

[Chancer]

I do use my CA debit card Nick, 99.9% of my purchases but none of the shops or supermarkets around here will accept it for payments of less than €10

[Chancer]

I dont have a clue what Apple pay is either or any of the others that I see on TV, if as I surmise they rely on you using a smartphone then I am happy to remain in my ignorance, if its just a different type of banc card with a transponder then you can be sure that my bank will want me to pay more for it and decide that I can spend even less of my money.

Recently they arbitrarily decided to drop my weekly spending limit on the card and for cash withdrawals to about €100, I had to go into the bank, make an appointment, come back another time to see a conseilleur to ask them to restore my limits to those agreed in the signed contract [:'(] needless to say I didnt budge and did my usual sitting cross legged protest and they "exceptionally" handled my request there and then but very ungraciously, they told me that they had done it for "the protection" of all their customers and I was the only one that had complained.

Sadly I can quite believe that.

[nomoss]

If any country did decide to abolish cash, I'm sure no-one would know about it until it had already happened.

As for black economies collapsing, if those operating within them wanted to survive they would have adapt to the new situation pretty quickly.

Not likely to happen though, as most of those involved in making the decisions about the economy are deeply involved in the black sector of it.

[NickP]

[quote user="Chancer"]I do use my CA debit card Nick, 99.9% of my purchases but none of the shops or supermarkets around here will accept it for payments of less than €10[/quote]

I think this ties in

with a discussion on another forum, about debit cards in the UK and

France, and there does appear to be a difference.  Although I must say I

see places in the UK who wont accept credit cards for purchases of less

than £10, the reason is that stores pay a fee to the credit card company on most transactions, I believe about 2.5% so if it is a small purchase the shop can lose money. As to the reason in France I don't know

[Chancer]

They would have you believe that its 2.5%, that is the starting rate for me as a private individual to have a credit card terminal to be used once in a blue moon, companys pay less and the more they take by card the less they pay hence the enlightened ones in the UK allowing you to pay 25p by card and the opposite reaction in France.

[Rabbie]

[quote user="Chancer"]They would have you believe that its 2.5%, that is the starting rate for me as a private individual to have a credit card terminal to be used once in a blue moon, companys pay less and the more they take by card the less they pay hence the enlightened ones in the UK allowing you to pay 25p by card and the opposite reaction in France.[/quote]

Here in the UK our local ironmonger will not accept credit card payments for amounts less than £5 so it is not just in France that smaller businesses have these restrictions.

[Quillan]

We take credit/debit cards but we don't 'advertise' the fact. We used a third party that whilst they may have offices in France do not do their transactions in France (actually it's through the UK).

 

Getting a card reader in France is not the problem; you can buy them on Ebay for reasonable prices. The problem is the French banking system. You must use their readers which you can rent monthly but can’t buy and you must have a SIRET number although the documentation for the BNP Paribas system which is supposed to be the French version of Payleven, Sum Up, PayPal etc does not say this till you try to get a machine and account. The issue for them is insurance; the insurance companies won't insure them against you committing fraud with their reader unless you have a SIRET number. I have no idea how the integrities of this works. Basically from my experience of trying to take CC and DD payments over the years is that the French banks have a monopoly and won't deal with anyone else opening such a system in France. PayPal came unstuck with them when they tried to launch their PayPal Here system in France. It would have suited us to use PayPal because we already have a business account with them but were forced to look elsewhere.

 

We currently use Payleven which charge between 2.75 and 1.5% per transaction depending on volume. (https://payleven.fr/costs/). You have to buy the terminal which costs £45 + VAT and it works through either a smart phone or tablet (both Apple and Android). Sum Up also offers a similar service but with a fixed rate of 1.75% regardless of volume which is actually a better deal (https://sumup.fr/pricing). The biggest issue for us CdH owners is that neither has the ability to accept "Customer Not Present" therefore you can't take deposits. The other issue with all of them is printing receipts which requires that you buy a special printer which is around £300. There is an alternative and it is what I have done which is that the card holder can enter their email address and it sends a receipt via email. Sum Up is, having read all the reviews, the best of the bunch and if you are starting from scratch then I would go for them. Why don't I have one? Well the truth is I have only used my Payleven unit three or four times over three years and for the limited times I have used it it seems a waste to throw it in the bin and buy another (they are ‘company’ dependant, I know I tries).

 

I should add that neither company charges you to actually use the reader nor for transfering the money to your bank account. All you pay is the transaction percentage fee.

[tinabee]

Small Swiss bank is first to introduce negative interest rates for savers . .

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/news/article-3329324/Swiss-bank-ABS-hit-savers-negative-rates.html