a brief rundown of French savings products, svp

[mint]

I'd greatly appreciate a summary of what's available and what the various names and initials mean.

Never having brought much to France save for buying the house and for living expenses, I hadn't needed to know.

Now, however, we have a few euros for which a better home than our current account would make sense.

I was in the bank talking about something else and I got sold a product which generates 2% net, not much but better than the loot sitting around and attracting attention every time I go and withdraw money.

He was persuasive, it was a hot day, I was disgruntled through having to get a cheque back from ING Direct (just too much hassle to be worth the bother) and so I agreed and signed all the stuff he put in front of me.  Pages of contract and you are a better person than I am if you do read ALL of the small print and NEVER sign anything until you have done so.

The upshot is that this evening I did get the paperwork out to have a look and googled PEL (which is the name of the product).  Now why the man sold me this, I do not know because I did tell him I was a home-owner.

Now I'm really worried because, of course, I am not entitled to have one of these PELs.  I guess I'll have to phone the damn man and tell him he must have misunderstood me or that I must have misunderstood him.

To save me blundering around some more, hoping to find somewhere to put some money, would some very kind person please explain the various savings accounts you can have?

I know many of you are smart with things like that...........so please help me.  Sue56, Norman, Wooly, Pickles, Parsnips, anyone else?

[woolybanana]

Maybe have a look at an assurance vie - which is not what we know as life insurance, but an investment fund. There are thousands available and they are very heavily used by the French. They are also very tax efficient. However, I am not sure if you can use them for income, and they do tend to be best if kept over a few years.

Better brains than mine can add more, doubtless.

[Pickles]

I'vew only got time for a quick response, unfortunately, but there's nothing wrong with you having a PEL: it opens up the right to a small loan that you will never be eligible to take out, but in the meantime it pays you interest.

[idun]

I have just written and lost a big post about the debacle we had with a PEL. I would be very very wary of them. We had to have one and the then BNP, well even at the time it felt like they robbed us blind with this perfectly legal way of holding one's money! We did get a subesequent loan too, but that was a farce and we never gained what we lost.

Maybe things have improved, they needed to, but go through it all with a nit comb, or something even finer!

[mint]

Id, explain to me, please.

Isn't a PEL a savings account you take out to save towards buying your own home and the account, after X number of years, enable you to borrow a loan with which to buy a house?

I know you are only allowed one each.  I don't want to do anything illegal.  If, as a homeowner already, I am not supposed to have a PEL, why on earth did the man encourage me to take one out?[:-))]

[Pickles]

[quote user="mint"]Isn't a PEL a savings account you take out to save towards buying your own home and the account, after X number of years, enable you to borrow a loan with which to buy a house?[/quote]

Correct

[quote user="mint"]I know you are only allowed one each.  I don't want to do anything illegal.  If, as a homeowner already, I am not supposed to have a PEL, why on earth did the man encourage me to take one out?[:-))][/quote]

Already having a home is NOT a problem: you can still have a PEL. It's just that you will never take up the option of the loan.

[idun]

Like an heffelump, I have a long memory when things go wrong and hurt us financially.

We moved to France with some savings, for the time, it was a nice little lump and we saw the BNP as it was called then. PEL they said, and we had to put some extra money away each month and we'll give you a mortgage, AND you can have a special cheap loan later.

And then several months later the first bank statement arrived, please bear in mind, in the early 80's the mortgage rate they were going to offer us was at about 16 or 17%. And this statement for our investment had an interest rate of half a percent. I did ask them about it, as savers were usually getting something half decent for their investment, but not us, that was as good as it got with a PEL.

So we had a couple of years of what I considered being fleeced. Got our uber expensive mortgage. And then when we could afford it, went in and asked if we could now take advantage of this super cheap loan for a kitchen. They said to bring in the estimates, which I did.

And then they said NON!, you cannot put it in yourselves, as you could take it out yourselves. I pointed out that any one can take a kitchen out at any time, even that which was posed by an artisan. The manager was called and he was not happy and he said that we had to do an attestation sur honneur that we would never ever ever take the kitchen out. So we did! We didn't get a super cheap loan, we got a bit cheaper loan,  we had lost bucket loads more in interest than we ever made by the cheap loan.

I don't trust PEL's, and I never trusted our then bank either.

As I said, they may have changed them now, they could not be worse than we encountered. Just go through it all with a very very fine comb. And find out exactly when you can access the money.  And what will happen if one of you dies first, if it is a joint account. I would always ask that of a french bank now we are older. Get everything in writing.

French bank clerks have  told me much nonsense over the years, or as my mother would have classed it, 'lies'.

[mint]

Thank you Pickles and id.

Id I am sorry you had such a hard time.  It must have been very distressing as you were only youngsters and saving up for a home.

Pickles, that was what I needed clarification on so that would be fine from my point of view.  If I fell on hard times, I'd know better than to ask the bank for money[:D]

[idun]

 Lol mint, I could write a book about every thing that has happened to us with french banks and none of it good.

 And do you know, I still do not understand them. Not how they work, or understand how they balance their accounts either, in fact, I have often wondered if they ever do.

[mint]

I wonder too, id.

You might recall that I "lost" 200 euros via a DAB that didn't give me the money but took it off my account instead.

Apparently, I now need to go back to the gendarmerie and "insist" that they get the bank (Tarneaud) whose DAB it is to reveal their video tape for that afternoon.

If I didn't have so much on my plate at the moment, I'd  go ahead and take them to the small claims court (greffe juridique or something like that) as per lehaut's suggestion, just to make them appear in court and lose them a bit of staff time and time  preparing their answers.

Even my bank person told me Tarneaud should give me the money back as it's not de grande chose.  NOT that that's a consolation but I did get my dig in that I only used the other bank's DAB because theirs was en panne.

[PaulT]

Mint I presume the person in the bank was so insistent because a PEL gave him the largest commission.

[mint]

I am sure you are right, Paul.

It's the old WIIFM factor, isn't it?  What's in it for me [I]

[woolybanana]

All banks are pimps, no more, just trying to force you to consume their products.

[woolybanana]

Nimt, don't you have 14 days to change your mind or something?

[mint]

I believe I do, Wools.  I don't mind 2% guaranteed for 4 years and you can take it out after two.

What I'd like is a bank where I can do an international transfer on-line and with no charges and with no mickey mouse limit like just 1000.

Know one of those, Wools?

I've solved a couple of problems today and have found a delightful little place for a snack called "le sans chichi" (don't you love the name?) in the town where we took doggie for her toilettage before the cold weather.

Good toiletteur too, takes just an hour as opposed the normal 2 hours everywhere else.

Now I am replete and the weather is so mild and sunny, it feels like summer because I can hear OH outside mowing the grass.  Nothing like doing nothing myself but being able to HEAR someone else working...................[:)]

[EuroTrash]

idun, I know it's not funny really but your post had me in stiches - much thanks for this light relief on a day that didn't go quite as planned.

Sorry but I have to ask you this... Did you, in fact, ever take the kitchen out? Or did you stick with it through thick and thin.

[idun]

No I didn't take the kitchen out.

Once I had started looking at new kitchens, it was all very strange really. Still, my life is always soap opera'ish, as if things can be odd, or go wrong or weird, they do.

I went to expensive places and cheap places to get estimates just for the units and every single place ended up costing just about 50000ff, so about £5k at the time.

I even went to the first Hygena shop in the region, which was in Lyon and that was the same, about 50000ff. And what was even odder, was they had packets of dried butter beans in lots of the cupboards.  Then at least, you never saw them in the shops or supermarkets in France.

And then when I set off home, I got lost and drove round and round and round for a full hour........... came to a screeching style halt as I saw a gendarmes car and was out my car and ran up to them. Bet they thought that murder had been commited, but I had had enough, and asked for directions to the road home. I was two streets away, but would not have found it. It was lovely to see the snow on the Alpes sparkling in the distance, as for once it was a beautiful clear day as I headed towards them. Had to fill up on the way home ofcourse, how cars used to be thirsty beasts.

In the end the kitchen was from the CAMIF, and was 35000ff, good quality and arrived with all the units made up. After all that hassle I never felt up to changing it. But if I had wanted to, I would, on my honour, have taken great delight in taking a sledge hammer to it!.........

[suein56]

[quote user="mint"]  I don't mind 2% guaranteed for 4 years and you can take it out after two.

What I'd like is a bank where I can do an international transfer on-line and with no charges and with no mickey mouse limit like just 1000.

[/quote]

You won't like the charges (8.10€ pm !) but Banque Populaire (Atlantique for us) seem to offer what you want. When we were waiting to sign for our house we had lots of money so needed to find various homes for it and BPA came up with 'compte à terme' short term lending them money at >4%, take it out, put it back in again and 'actions sociales' ? (need to confirm the name later) which paid around 4%. These are social participation shares in your bank. With these you can take your money out when you like and interest, or reinvestment of interest, is paid out once a year. These have no income tax benefits though.

Go and ask if your bank does something similar.

Sue

[mint]

Sue, I can't see anywhere the 8.10 euro charges that you mention?

I know there are contributions sociales to pay but you pay those on interest on all savings anyway, don't you?

I have a few days left to cancel the PEL without giving a reason and without penalties so my time for research is running out.

The compte à terme sounds very good to me as I too for the moment anyway have more euros than I can use or need and I am getting rather desperate to find a home for them.

Wools, I have received your message and will try and reply some time today.

[suein56]

[quote user="mint"]Sue, I can't see anywhere the 8.10 euro charges that you mention? [/quote]

That's the monthly charge OH and I pay for the dubious pleasure of being able to have a current account, a card and savings accounts with them !

Actually it went up I believe, so it could be 8€20 per month by now. As I said they are not a cheap bank but their products are seemingly quite good.

A PEL is perhaps not the right account for you, which Bank was it with ?

Edit : Wooly might well be right; if you haven't already got an assurance vie then you should have at least one as even the most docile one pays >3% per annum with the joy of being able to take your money out if and when needed and tax advantages to boot.

Though I have a feeling your OH might be a tad old (sorry I am not desperately good at diplomacy) to benefit from an assurance vie

Sue

[Lehaut]

We have a PEL with CA, our second one. It is time limited, if you don't use if for a loan after a certain period of time you have to close that account and start another one. We are house owners, no problem. Its the highest rate available with them at the moment. Assurance Vie are great if you want to exclude the money from the tax man for your succession when you die. However, there are entrance charges with some and this could add up to the first years interest. There are options too as to where you want the bank to invest the money. Depending on your Bank, if you have the assurance vie and your children/spouse do, on your death, the money in the account goes direct to your children or your spouse, without it going via the Notaire and thus being subject to tax.

The Assurance Vie is also open to your choice of beneficiary which is great if you want to leave more to one member of your family without the others knowing, thus starting a good French feud which will endure for generations.....

The Depot à Terme (DAT )is also interesting, the capital stays the same and you get a rising rate of return from it over a certain number of years.

[woolybanana]

nimt, I have pm'd you.

[Judith]

I had a compte à terme for some time, which is fine if you are not going to need the money.  Like the UK ones, if you are prepared to leave your money in you can get acceptable rates of return (or at least as good as you can at the mo).  Other than the fact that we couldn't use it when we moved house because it had another year to run and we would have lost a lot on it if we'd closed it, it caused us no other problems and the interest rate was appreciably higher than other savings products.

I took mine out with my bank, simply because I did not bother to look around because I was happy with what was offered, and didn't have the time to research.

[mint]

To Wools, I have replied and I apologise for the delay; been too busy reading the small print![:D]  No, NOT of your message but the bumpf that came with the PEL.

Lehaut, so you were satisfied with your PEL?  Can you say how long you kept it for and whether and how you declare it on your tax return?

On balance, I think a comte à terme might be what I want, for a chunk of the money anyhow.

Then I want a livret or similar to put another chunk of money in and withdraw or add to as needed.

I want little fuss and don't care too much about rate of interest as the money will be sitting around for a rainy day.  Barring death, debt or divorce, I don't anticipate wanting to do much with it.

I'm done with chateau living (please take note, Wools) and high living in general![:P]

Help, I'm rapidly turning into a French peasant so please keep up the advice before I take it all out the bank and stuff it under my mattress![:D]

[idun]

I was always led to believe that the stuffing the mattress was not the french way, buying le lingot d'or, and maybe burying your treasure.[Www]