Jump to content

Can French bank ask about source of money?


EM
 Share

Recommended Posts

It happened to me this week. I recently transferred money from a UK account via Currencies Direct into my French account in order to purchase a car. My pension is also paid in each month by Currencies Direct, the bank are aware of this as I explained it to them when I set up the account. I think that the problem is that, because the money was transferred via a broker there is no information available as to where the money originated from.

I received an E-mail querying where the money had come from and so I went into the bank with the sales invoice for the car and told them the money came from my UK account. I was thanked for taking the time out to explain it, there was no in depth interview, the whole process took less than Five minuets.

I suspect that if a large sum of unaccountable money landed in a UK bank account these days the same questions would be asked.

Dexter
Link to comment
Share on other sites

All EU banks have to comply with EU money laundering regulations. If everyone could transfer huge amounts of money all over the world no questions asked, life would be too easy for criminals.

Your branch is not threatening you, it is just a local branch and it probably wishes it could ignore the transaction but it can't because it has to follow the rules or get sanctioned. It has to ask you for information and it has to pass this information o. Every bank has a central department that deals with money laundering compliance. Loads of transactions are flagged up every week and the customers are asked the same questions that you're being asked. Every bank processes hundreds of money laundering reports are processed every week, it's routine, and most of them are simply filed away once the information has been recorded and checked. If you don't tell them, your branch will have to pass on to its money laundering department that the customer did not provide the information, what else can they do. It's no good blaming your branch for all this, it would have happened whatever bank you use because they all have to comply with the same rules, and all their systems are set up to flag up transactions that meet the same set criteria.

It's not about accusations and conspiracy theories, it's just about establishing facts. The money came from somewhere, they need to know where, and once they know that then as long as it's not drug money or money from selling guns they will lose interest. Hope this makes you feel better.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="Foxie"]Hope this makes you feel better.[/quote]

It does a bit - thank you.

I wasn't really singling out my local branch, I meant that I feel cheated by the bank as a whole, because they didn't tell me in advance "hey, if you want to transfer in more than X then be prepared to do Y". Now that they have my money they can basically hold it to ransom until I do whatever they want. Perhaps to them (and to everyone here) it's so obvious that it didn't need to be said, but it was not obvious to me.

Your explanation is somewhat reassuring, though. I can only hope you're right and this just gets filed away somewhere and that's the end of it.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Your bank will not explain to you about money laundering checks - it applies to all banks and is fairly widely known that EU money laundering regulations are in force. A few such as yourself obviously do not or rather did not - it has been explained to you here about the money laundering regulations that are adhered to by all banks - and those banks, if they did not adhere would be in trouble.

I think Dave is shrewd enough to know how far he can push things but in your case due to naivety think you could find the money extracted from your account on suspicion of money laundering and banned from holding a bank account - can you cope if that happens? If you can tell the bank to sling its hook, if you cannot allow the bank to carry out its obligations.......unless you are actually money laundering which might explain your concerns.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="EM"][quote user="Hereford"]If you have done nothing wrong and can prove the source of the money then you really should not worry.[/quote]

OK, and what if I've done nothing wrong, but cannot prove the source of the money? Then I suppose I should worry - and I do!

Yes, my course is entirely in English. And yes, the transfers were from outside the EU.

I did ask about this at my university, actually, but they couldn't tell me anything useful. The well-meaning staff agreed with me that this shouldn't be any of the bank's business. They said they'd never heard of this happening before. If I had a euro for every time I heard that...

Perhaps I'm alone in this, but I really feel that the bank is totally abusing its power and the trust I've placed in it. Had they told me about this up-front I would never have done so!

The worst thing about it is that their threat is implicit and I don't actually know what it is I'm being threatened with. It IS a threat, though - there is an implication of negative consequence for not giving them what they want. (Otherwise why would anyone answer?) Of course, even asking them to explain themselves can be seen as "uncooperative" - and they're still unlikely to give me a meaningful answer.

Anyway, I suppose I'll have to send them the statement they're after and just HOPE that satisfies them.[/quote]

If the originating account is in your name, then perhaps just a copy of an account statement for the originating account may suffice. If not, then a note signed by the owner of the originating account confirming the payment and the reason for the payment - eg covering living expenses. Of course, SocGen would be in no position to check the signature ...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="EM"][quote user="Foxie"]Hope this makes you feel better.[/quote]

It does a bit - thank you.

I wasn't really singling out my local branch, I meant that I feel cheated by the bank as a whole, because they didn't tell me in advance "hey, if you want to transfer in more than X then be prepared to do Y". Now that they have my money they can basically hold it to ransom until I do whatever they want. Perhaps to them (and to everyone here) it's so obvious that it didn't need to be said, but it was not obvious to me.

Your explanation is somewhat reassuring, though. I can only hope you're right and this just gets filed away somewhere and that's the end of it.[/quote]

At least once if not twice a year SocGen tries to find a new hoop to make us - as non-residents - jump through. For example, the fact that the French Fisc sends all of its paperwork through to us in a different country is not enough evidence. They want paperwork from HMRC. And it has to be dated within the last x months. So we lodge meaningless documents from HMRC bearing our details and SocGen are suddenly happy. Until the next time.

They aren't picking on you. They are ticking boxes. SocGen now ticks more boxes than previously thanks to the failure of its internal systems in the Kerviel case (for example) and other things for which it has been warned!

Whenever SocGen makes a mistake, the customers get punished ...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree that its box ticking, like everything in France the love of paperasse, filing and box ticking takes over completely from the intention behind the original legislation, that and the love of making huge efforts every year to complicate things even further where humanly possible, the hoop jumping scenario.

i had this for years with CL, I've described it at legnth before so wont bore you again but someone must have decided as I was foreign I wasnt resident and they started sending my statements at great cost every month to the UK where they were no use to me, they could not and would not accept that they had ever had my French address despite the statements having been sent there and it figuring on all my cheques, they really couldnt answer that one.

To no avail despite my best efforts I could never get them to re-accept my French home address so i let it be, I didnt even use the account, it cost me nothing and was costing them loads every month.

Then came all the demands for information, the first year I complied, thereafter I would go into the branch and make them photocopy the self same documents that they had done the year before, i signed the form, they filed it and were happy for another year.

No-one ever noticed that my latest tax return was one from 10 years previously nor that my stated profession was an international playboy or that my place of birth was on the moon [blink]

Eventually I stopped bothering so they closed my account, sent me a cheque for something like €10 by recorded delivery to my UK address where of course I could not sign for it, at that stage someone decided that maybe they could use my French address after all and invited me into the branch, they had also declared me interdit bancaire, all in all it gave me a little grief but I moved to CA who have not given me any of the same yet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm sure it's good fun to tell the bank you were born on the moon and it probably brightened up an otherwise very dull day for the spotty spikey haired youth who was given the job of collating the information - but the problem is that the bank isn't interested in this info, it doesn't need to check it or even read it, it's just the go-between. All it needs to do is to stick the forrm in your file and as you say tick the box to say your file is now up to date. The only time anyone might actually take any notice of what you wrote on your forms is if there is ever an investigation by a higher authority, tax or money laundering or fraud or whatever, and jokes don't always seem quite as funny when you have to explain them to men in suits who don't have much of a sense of humour.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="AnOther"]Under EU money laundering rules sums in excess of €10,000 are reportable to the tax authorities, below that it's individual bank policy.

[/quote]

What about that bloke who was stopped having just crossed over from Spain with €1 million in notes in his car the other day (IIRC). I think he's got a lot of 'splaining to do ...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As a coincidence I received an email from the currency brokers I use yesterday, saying that due to change in regulations they needed to ask me whether I was tax payer or filed tax returns in the USA. I didn't need to prove it..they just had to ask.

The tax authorities in all countries must receive millions of notifications of large deposits being deposited into accounts and could not possibly investigate the majority. My guess is they pick a few at random.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The advantage of the system is that the notifications remain in a computer file somewhere, the day that someone with a grudge denounces me as a money launderer or whatever all they have to do is do a search and they will know all the occasions that I might have recieved large sums of money, which is none but lets suppose they had been notified by my bank then they would ask the bank to retrieve the form that they had asked me to fill in, the stupid obedient banks have to devote space time and money to archive and retrieve what I would tell the government to look after itself or charge them for prviding the service.

I bet the banks wet their panties when they cant find one of the forms or if they discover that the person claims to be un homme international de mystère (another that I like to use) and that the money was declared to be intended for the purchase of large quantities of illicit substances.

In these days of the highest level of Vigipirate I am happy that the government can access Financial information easily if they have a suspicion, I am unhappy with the blind, intrusive and  over the top manner with which they implement their obligations, but then I have yet to meet a French person that has an objective to simplify things, they are probably delighted that they must take on more staff to assure the function and can increase their charges.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We had once a letter from Credit Agricole asking us to prove our identity, the next time we were in France we went to our local branch and asked, what is this all about. They said if they could have a copy of our passport they would put it on file and that would be that. The next year  we had the same letter from Credit Agricole asking for the same thing again, all we did was replied that we haven't changed our identity since last year. They thanked us for the reply and that's the last we heard from them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...
If only Banque Unpopulaire were so easily satisfied: every 2 years they bully us into trapsing down to the branch and giving them our passports to confirm that: yes - we are STILL retired, and,  yes - those are still our dates and places of birth. Only next time I am going to be the one to supply the photocopy of the passport, which will have the number and the expiry month/day redacted.  I have decided that in these days of identity theft I am quite happy for an officer of the bank to view the actual documents, but unhappy with full copies of our passports to be sitting in their filing cabinets for years at a time.  Also, last time we were asked to give them a copy of our latest Impots sur Revenue, for reasons which the lady from the bank couldn't explain in either French or English ! We fudged that one and they never followed it up, but this year (it's bound to crop up again in the next 6 months!) I intend to patiently explain that if the banque feels it has a justifiable reason to see our tax return, then they should apply directly to the fisc for it. If they are happy to supply them with a copy, there is nothing I can do about it, but I'm damned if I'm going to volunteer MORE personal data to store forever in their unlocked filing cabinets, and be passed on to their pestering marketing department.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We left the BP.

Not convenient leaving a bank, but we did it several times in France. Still, neither is being treat like a criminal. Wonder if the russian oligarchs have all this rigmarole, or even if they ask there 'their' money really comes from?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="idun"]We left the BP.

Not convenient leaving a bank, but we did it several times in France. Still, neither is being treat like a criminal. Wonder if the russian oligarchs have all this rigmarole, or even if they ask there 'their' money really comes from?

[/quote]

It's interesting that when I had to set up a virement recently to Netherlands to pay for a holiday let (only credit card or bank Xfer accepted), I tried to do it on line with my Credit Ag a/c and got to the final page when it said I had to go in to the branch to have it verified (which the lady at the desk did - with no Q's asked - with a few clicks of a mouse). The same operation attempted on the BP site generated a page of Q's all basically being, "please tick the box which best describes what you are using the money for" Since there wasn't a "this is my own damned money, and not an application for a loan therefore it's none of your damned business" box, I pulled the plug on it.

p.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...