Are saving accounts protected in France?

[Blossom]

To what extent are savings protected in France if a bank were to 'get into difficulties'.

[Wendy]

Depends what you mean by a French 'bank'. There are really only about 3 actual 'banks' in France. Credit Agricole is a mutually owned 'bank'...therefore more risk is involved. BNP, Societe Generale and HSBC are actually 'banks'. The rest are all building societies so conditions differ.

I choose not to bank here at all...the service is rubbish.

[Anton Redman]

In terms of immediate information have a look through :

http://www.banque-france.fr/gb/supervi/telechar/2000_deposit.pdf

Credit Agricole remains a collection of loose alliances with rules and procedures which vary depending on which legal entity you are dealing with.

The service may be rubbish but for some actvities it is the only game in town

[Blossom]

Thanks for the replies. We were with Credit Agricole and, yes, the service was awful - wouldn't want to generalise, though. We also discovered that if you move department you can't simply change the address on your account; you have to open a completely new one! 

We are now with La Banque Postale - branches and cash machines everywhere and changes of address no problem. Can't comment on its banking services as we haven't really used any...yet. However, the results of our attempts at asking the cost of transfering x amount of funds from our UK bank at small/medium sized branches, suggests that we may have to use the larger town/city ones for anything other than simple cash transactions. Needless to say, we didn't ask about savings protection!!

[AnOther]

Depending on how much you are thinking of putting in a savings A/C and your need to access it, with the current strength of the € you might want to at least consider converting it to £ and saving it in UK.

That presupposes that you are able to do that, i.e. existing UK bank A/C if you are French resident etc.

Something to think about anyway.

 

 

[AnOther]

[quote user="Jura"]I choose not to bank here at all...the service is rubbish.[/quote]

Certainly no one could ever accuse you of sitting on the fence Jura [6] [:D]

Rubbish service or not though, as Anton says, a French bank A/C is pretty essential for certain activities and whilst it's not impossible it is hard to imagine living here without one. Are we to take it that you pay everything by cash then [blink]

What level of service you get from an individual bank branch is probably as much subject to variation in France as it is in UK however, as a simple conduit for paying money in, withdrawing it and having Direct Debits paid etc. I doubt there is much to choose between any of them.

If you are needful of other "services" such as savings A/C's, insurance or loans and mortgages, then that might be a different matter.

Thankfully I can forsee no circumstance in which my personal French banking needs would ever fall outwith the former category [:D]

 

[Wendy]

Well I have banked here - CA. Only one 'teller', at least a half hour wait every single time to simply deposit some cash despite there being only 2 people ahead of you. Just like la poste. Too much standing around...and they stare at their computer screens as if they had never seen them before. Sorry, life is too short for such inept nonsence. But then we all must know that the village branches of CA are just job creation schemes for the locals, customer service has nothing to do with anything. There are far too many branches than they can actually finance - hence their charges for anything and everything.

 

[AnOther]

I'm with CA and my not particularly large branch has a secure deposit box for paying money in so no human contact is neccessary, maybe all don't have this, I don't know.

I wonder how much of this time you save by refusing to put up with "inept nonsense" is doubly wasted in having to personally visit places like FT, EDF, etc. to pay your bills in cash or by debit/credit card, or however it is you pay them now without a French bank A/C [8-)]

As I observed in another thread somewhere Jura, it would seem that you are ill suited to life in France [blink]

[:)] 

 

[Clair]

[quote user="Jura"]Well I have banked here - CA. ...There are far too many branches than they can actually finance - hence their charges for anything and everything. [/quote]

Jura,

I resolved some time ago not to go into get into any discussion with you, but to simply correct any misinformation you post in your sweeping generalisations about France.

In this instance, I have to point out that I too bank with CA (as does Mr Clair) and the ONLY charge made against my account (and his) is an annual fee for a bank card.

If I buy anything in the US or the UK (or any country outside the Eurozone), I get charged, but I could say that's my choice and also that I used to get charged in the same way by my UK bank when using my bank card outside the UK.

[David]

Sorry, but I must put the other side of Jura's post.

We bank with a small country town branch of Credit Agricole.  Sure, sometimes there is a wait to see the teller while she discusses matters with the people in front.  If the wait is too long, then another teller is called out.

Once we reach the front, the teller takes note of our problem, and deals with it in an humane way.  She discusses our problems, and ensures that we have the correct solution for us.  Sometimes she also asks us how we are managing, etc.  I must admit that we do not expect to be in and out within 30 seconds, and we allow time accordingly.

I think this is proper banking of a type not seen in the UK for many years, where the bank actually seems to care about their clients.

For me this is typical of France, where there is real concern for people, rather than the totally impersonal profit making machine that UK banking seems to have become.

Also, we have not noticed any excessive charges, we just enjoy the personal banking provided by CA, and we have no complaints at all.

This is France, to borrow a phrase - lie back and enjoy it.

David

[AnOther]

I will endorse Davids comments.

Although as I've said our dealings with my local CA are now very limited in the beginning when we first opened the A/C they were helpful, courteous and efficient, as indeed they were the times we went in afterwards to collect our cheque book and cards etc. and also when we paid money in manually, until we realised the deposit machine was there and learnt how to use it [:$]

To add La Poste to the topic, for routine day to day posting we find the self service machine very handy and if not always free rarely is there more than one person in front when we want to use it. The majority of French customers seem to enjoy queuing and having a chat. In UK such a queue would be comprised mostly of scowling faces suffering in stony silence.

It seems to me that both the bank and La Poste manage to cater reasonably well for both class of customers, those who want in/out in the fastest possible time and also for the more laid back customer who likes to have a natter, as is the French way.

It's pointless and futile getting uptight about it, its the way it is and thats all there is to it

I've certainly had far more frustrating experiences at the bank and village PO in UK [:-))]

[SaligoBay]

[quote user="David"]

We bank with a small country town branch of Credit Agricole. 

................

For me this is typical of France, [/quote]

 

That's nice, David.   But if you're allowed to claim that your good experience in one small country town branch is typical of the entire country, then surely Jura is allowed to too?

 

[Rose (& Greyman)]

[quote user="SaligoBay"]

That's good one small town is typical of the entire country

 

[/quote]

Hey look SaligoBay, if I carve up your post I change the meaning too !!!  [:-))]

[David]

[quote user="SaligoBay"][quote user="David"]

We bank with a small country town branch of Credit Agricole. 

................

For me this is typical of France, [/quote]

 

That's nice, David.   But if you're allowed to claim that your good experience in one small country town branch is typical of the entire country, then surely Jura is allowed to too?

 

[/quote]

You misread my post SaligoBay.  Based on my own experience, I was just putting an alternative view to that of Jura in order to give a balance for those who are not familiar with French banking.  I am sure that my experience is not typical of the entire country, Paris for example.

Thank you for your comments greyman, you put it much better and more concisely than I ever could.

David

[Jamesdee]

At the risk of inviting a swift reproof, I should also like to comment on my own personal experience with my branch of the CA. I have found the staff to be friendly, personable, courteous and keen to go out of their way to deal with any problems I bring them. And there have been many. I travel a great deal and one of the Directors at my bank has given me his email so that when I check my account on line, if there are any problems or queries I can email him and pose the questions. Invariably I have a response within 48 hours. I contrast that level of service with the service at my local Nationwide Bank in UK and my National Bank here in New Zealand and by any measure it comes out on top.

To get the same high quality service you might have to move to Department 17 but hey, a small price to pay and it is a lovely place to live.

I apologise to the original poster for digressing from the subject.

[Blossom]

My original thread, with one exception, seems to have turned into a Crédit Agricole love-in! Here, then, is our experience.

Just

over a year ago we opened a widely advertised CA Britline account only

to discover that it was based in Normandy and not transferable to other

parts of France. We therefore had to close this account (which cost us

£30) and open a completely new one elsewhere. After a while, we decided

to form a joint account from our two individual ones. It subsequently

took three months of phone calls and branch visits to properly

terminate one of these accounts. We decided to move to another region

and asked for an appointment to close our CA account. Six months and

several phone calls later, it is still open and we can access the

account online!

Two other points: our AXA house insurance is 40%

cheaper than CA; and our La Banque Postale charges are about 20%

less than CA's for exactly the same facilities (cheque book insurance

and online viewing).

[allanb]

I do remember your original question (seems a long time ago!) and the answer seems to be : yes, bank accounts (not just savings accounts) are protected by something called the Fonds de Garantie de Dépôts (website = www.garantiedesdepots.fr).  Here is an excerpt:

Cash deposited with your financial institution, securities held and some guarantees issued by

it on your behalf, are protected by guarantee mechanisms managed by the Fonds de Garantie

des Dépôts under terms and conditions laid down by France’s 25th June 1999 Act relating to

savings and financial security and its enforcement clauses.

This is not my translation, by the way; they publish some information in English.

There are quite a few conditions and limitations, but the important ones seem to be (1) the guarantee is limited to €70,000 per depositor and per bank, and (2) the bank must be a "credit institution" that is on their list - but the list contains hundreds of names and seems to include all the French banks I've ever heard of.

I don't think it's quite clear who's providing the guarantee, i.e. is it the French government, or is it some kind of collective guarantee by the banks themselves?  But anyway, I would guess that it's fairly safe.

[Blossom]

Thanks for your help allanb. What an excellent link!

[oldgit72]

Can anyone tell me if the guarantees (protected by something called the Fonds de Garantie de Dépôts)  in French banks are still 70k euros per depositor per bank or have they changed recently?

 

Thanks

[Dog]

I bank with a Jamaican bank. You can speak to the Directors and the Managers personally and get things done when you want. I have never had better service.

[parsnips]

[quote user="oldgit72"]

Can anyone tell me if the guarantees (protected by something called the Fonds de Garantie de Dépôts)  in French banks are still 70k euros per depositor per bank or have they changed recently?

 

Thanks

[/quote]

Hi,

   When I recently saw something on this it was still 70k € with talk of increasing it.