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Bank Account: Evidence of Income


Grecian
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We have been looking to open a French bank account, before our move to France at the end of September. I have looked at CA Britline's webpage, on there it is asking for evidence of income documentation, if we wish to open an account with them, i.e. pension statements, proof of investments etc. Can anybody tell me if this is standard practice, when opening a bank account with any bank in France.

The way we had envisaged running our financial affairs in France, was to have all our income paid into our newly opened Nationwide accounts, and then drawing our day-to-day expenses out the hole-in-the-wall in France. As well as moving over via an FX company, larger sums of money into our new French bank account, to fund large purchases and pay any direct debits within that account. If the bank is asking for regular payments to be deposited into our French bank account, this would mean we will lose control of the rate at which we decide to convert our sterling into euros.

Any feedback will be gratefully received.

 

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What you are planning to do is almost the same as we have been doing for ages. The only difference is that we managed to open the French bank account by simply going into the branch near our (then) holiday home. They didnt ask to see any documents as far as I remember.

However, a few years down the line we had a phone call and were asked to present ourselves at the bank. We were then told that our account was not profitable for them and they tried to insist that we paid money in regularly.

Funny, I had never worried about them not making any money from us. We were just withdrawing from the hole in the wall (Nationwide) and depositing euros at the bank in person each month to feed the account and cover the standing orders for water, elec, internet and phone.

I cheekily told the bank employee that we will be paying money in regularly but were just waiting for Britain to adopt the euro first. They seemed happy with that!! Mind you, it is a small branch in a small village down in 66.

I did feel a bit guilty about deceiving them at the time.

Last year I became eligible state pension in England so I arranged for that to go directly to our Banque Populaire account. It seems to get quite a good exchange rate and there are no charges. AND I can look the bank manager in the face once more.
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Polremy, we are doing exactly as you have been.

The only money that goes into our Credit Agricole account (basic current account with one carte bancaire) is money that we put in ourselves.

I dare say our account doesn't make them anything.  It costs just over €2 a month and we have 2 direct debits coming out of it and that's all the movement in it.

So far, no one's queried why we do it this way and we haven't been asked to change it in any way. 

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[quote user="Grecian"]

We have been looking to open a French bank account, before our move to France at the end of September. I have looked at CA Britline's webpage, on there it is asking for evidence of income documentation, if we wish to open an account with them, i.e. pension statements, proof of investments etc. Can anybody tell me if this is standard practice, when opening a bank account with any bank in France.[/quote]I also looked at CA's Britline and decided that there was far too much bureaucracy involved - they wanted references, proof of income, utility bills, birth certificates and what I had for breakfast - so instead I went into my local branch of CA in France and the young lady on the till opened the account for me there and then and wanted only my passport and birth certificate. I paid in a small cheque I'd had from the notaire and went away with a shiny new account in less than 10 minutes.

Richard T

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I'm with Richard, Britline wanted more than I was prepared to waste time giving them and crucially, you end up with a CA A/C in some far flung corner of NW France which can turn out to be a handicap as CA branches operate on an almost franchise basis. Try paying in a cheque in another department for instance, they have to post it to your branch, if they accept it at all that is !

We opened our CA A/C with nothing more than our passports, a UK bank statement and a copy of our Compromis from the notaire, and with a cheque from the Notaire too.

We too use a NWide card to withdraw cash from the ATM, usually the one at our own bank, then walk inside and pay it in. Seems a daft and inefficient way to do it but it works [blink]

Never had any comments re underusage of the A/C, or anything else for that matter [:)]

 

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I am suprised to read that so many of you open accounts with Credit Agricole in France. Personally I would not consider the bank. They are a virtual monopoly in many parts of the country. My experience with them is they also behave as you would expect from a monopoly. There are so many other banks in France which will give you better service. HSBC for example, CCSO, Barclays International, Banque Populaire to name but four. With modern internet connections it is not necessary to bank at your local CA down the road.
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It is most certainly better when you have the choice, however, the Crédit Agricole are the only bank in the village after the Caisse d'Epargne closed their branch a few yeras back.

Without them, those with transport would have to drive to the next town for cash, which would most probably spent there too.

I cannot imagine what it would be like for others without transport.

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I guess it depends on what you want from a bank.

All we want/need is an A/C for keeping a bit of cash, for paying of DD's for utilities etc. and a debit card, not at all interested in mortgages/loans/savings/insurance or whatever other alleged 'value added services' they offer.

On that simple basis there is probably little to choose between banks and to be completely honest, we chose CA for little other reason that it was local and our Immo (English) told us that she banked there and most of the staff spoke reasonable English.

There is also another factor: there are a lot of things to organise and sort out when making the move to France, and in common with many others I'm sure, in some we have initially taken the course of least resistance, so it was with the bank A/C.

As time goes by and we get more tuned in to the way things work and the options available, we may well consider changes to some of those choices.

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I live in a little town where there is a choice of at least 4 banks, I chose CA on recommendation. I opted for internet banking which I wouldn't be without, true it costs a few euros a month but I don't mind that because as has been pointed out, banks don't make much profit on accounts that basically just exist to feed a few prelevements each month. Last Saturday I paid a cheque and a lot of cash in via the machine, then I asked the girl at the counter (yes, on a Saturday) how long it would be before the funds were cleared and available, she said was it urgent, I said yes fairly (I had a builder waiting to be paid), she said I'll get it out of the machine and process it straight away, by the time I had walked home - five minutes - and switched the pc on and logged in to my account, the money showing as available! I think that is GOOD service.
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[quote user="Logan"]There are so many other banks in France which will give you better service. HSBC for example, CCSO, Barclays International, Banque Populaire to name but four. With modern internet connections it is not necessary to bank at your local CA down the road.[/quote]

At least two of those I'm trying to get away from!!  And, not everyone wishes to bank by internet.  Nothing beats the need to learn French when you need to to talk to you bank and can't.  I did have online access to my CA branch (before I moved to another department and thus closed it down) and found it worse than useless compared with the internet banking services in the UK (which again are a curate's egg, some with terrible interfaces, others extremely good).  As far as I am aware, most French banks charge a monthly fee for the use of a current account, so they do make money from little used accounts (as was my former account).

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[quote user="Judith"] As far as I am aware, most French banks charge a monthly fee for the use of a current account [...][/quote]

They do, unless you say you do not require the bells and whistles (overdraft, card insurance, link to savings accounts, bonus points on spending...)

I only pay an annual fee for my card.

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My bank is losing more money on my account than yours[:P]

I use the account exactly as others have mentioned and had been paying €7 per month, then I wised up, handed back my bank card and explained that the bells and whistles had no value to me. From then on I have had free banking.

This coincided exactly with them insisting on sending the monthly statements to my UK address, I could not convince them otherwise despite many robust discussions so I capitulated thinking if they want to waste the money that I dont give them then so be it[:)]

The only downside is that now I sometimes need the hole in the wall card to check my balance but content myself with going in and asking for it to be written on a piece of paper that I havnt paid for.

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The reason I like internet banking - in fact the only thing I use it for - is being able to check my account when I'm not in France. All these prelevements make me nervous, I know they always tell you what they are going to take and when, but if you don't get the letter ... and having it sent to the UK wouldn't help as I have an itinerant lifestyle, the only real constant is being able to log on from whatever country I'm in. So now I check EDF, water, telecoms etc online, and keep an eye on my bank account, and no longer do I have to make a beeline for the nearest hole in the wall to get a balance the moment I land back in France, to see if emergency action is required. Well worth it just for the tremendous peace of mind, it's taken all the stress out of it. To return to the OP, I opened the account in branch and they didn't ask for evidence of income but they did want to see recent statements from my UK bank as well as ID etc.
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I opened a bank account with CA Britline - I produced certified bank statements to show my income and a utility bill to confirm my UK address. Oh yes and also a certified copy of my passport. All banks now ask for this because of money laundering. I really think the issue here is - Is your French good enough to cope with telephoning a bank in case of a problem with say direct debits/standing orders/money transfers??

I am very pleased with Britline. I bank on-line, but if I have any questions I phone and speak to excellent English speaking personnel who are very helpfull.

Good Luck

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We've had a checking account with CA for 7 years and have never been asked for evidence of income.  When we opened the account we were en train de purchase a maison secondaire (at that time it would have been our only property in France) and were only asked to produce things like passports.

Since then we get occasional requests for proof of residence (which is in the US), but still nothing about income.  The amount we keep in the account is normally quite small, just enough to cover the pre-leved utilities, etc., although lately, as we've renovated our new ms, we have occasionally deposited rather large sums (they don't sit there for long, however).

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Phew! That was a lot of replies, many thanks to all who took the trouble to answer.

Sifting through all the replies, I am thinking that the Britline option is not really what we are looking for, and opening an account with either our local CA or Credit Mutuelle in our village when we arrive, will be the route we will be going down. I forsee us using Ernie's method of keeping our account topped up, i.e. withdrawing from the ATM via our NW card, and then redepositing the money back into the bank!

I am aware that there are charges associated with French banking. Can anybody tell me if we open a joint account, are the charges the same for an individual account, or are the charges doubled up for a joint account?

 

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[quote user="Grecian"]

Phew! That was a lot of replies, many thanks to all who took the trouble to answer.

Sifting through all the replies, I am thinking that the Britline option is not really what we are looking for, and opening an account with either our local CA or Credit Mutuelle in our village when we arrive, will be the route we will be going down. I forsee us using Ernie's method of keeping our account topped up, i.e. withdrawing from the ATM via our NW card, and then redepositing the money back into the bank!

I am aware that there are charges associated with French banking. Can anybody tell me if we open a joint account, are the charges the same for an individual account, or are the charges doubled up for a joint account?

 

[/quote]

My husband and I have a joint CA account, and the fees are not doubled, except that if you want 2 debit cards (we do) there are separate annual fees for each card (the first is 33,80€ and the second is 16,90€).

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[quote user="Grecian"]

We have been looking to open a French bank account, before our move to France at the end of September. I have looked at CA Britline's webpage, on there it is asking for evidence of income documentation, if we wish to open an account with them, i.e. pension statements, proof of investments etc. Can anybody tell me if this is standard practice, when opening a bank account with any bank in France.

 

[/quote]

I stumbled across Britline a short while ago through a telephone contact and couldn't get away from them fast enough. The person at the other end of the fone was arrogant and rude in the extreme and was determined to obtain details of all my assets. This is not a problem I ever encountered with CA in my local town. It seems that Britline are just getting too big for their boots in their urge to get business from customers or potential customers.

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[quote user="Grecian"]

We have been looking to open a French bank account, before our move to France at the end of September. I have looked at CA Britline's webpage, on there it is asking for evidence of income documentation, if we wish to open an account with them, i.e. pension statements, proof of investments etc. Can anybody tell me if this is standard practice, when opening a bank account with any bank in France.

 

[/quote]

I stumbled across Britline a short while ago through a telephone contact and couldn't get away from them fast enough. The person at the other end of the fone was arrogant and rude in the extreme and was determined to obtain details of all my assets. This is not a problem I ever encountered with CA in my local town. It seems that Britline are just getting too big for their boots in their urge to get business from customers or potential customers.

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Originally we paid no charges at all for our account with Banque Populaire. (1989 - 2006!! totally free banking)

Recently we asked them for a debit card mainly so that we could withdraw cash without the interminable queue at our local branch. We can also use this to withdraw euros when we are in Spain - or anywhere else in the Eurozone I presume.

There is no charge for withdrawals.

We just have the one basic card which means we can't make purchases with it in shops or on line. This is fine with us. The charge is 18 euros a year. I know it is not much but I still find that difficult to swallow since we cant even check our balance.

They do, however, send us a monthly statement by post.

We cant see the point in having a BP credit card since that would cost about 36 euros a year. We are still using our Nationwide cards - both debit and credit.
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[quote user="Polremy"]... we asked them for a debit card...

... We just have the one basic card which means we can't make purchases with it in shops or on line... [/quote]

I don't understand why you say you can't make purchases with it in shops or on line if it is a regular Banque Pop debit card.  That's what we have and it works just fine in ATM's, shops and on-line.  That's what it is for.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've had no probs with CA which is the only bank in my local village. It's a foreigners' account and costs 4.5 euros per month.  Could I get cheaper?  I've been paying cash in when in France to cover EDF, Saur, tax etc.

was not impressed by Britline, who kept addressing me as Mr in spite of my female name and me telling them off.  Also they sent poorly photocopied info with bits missing.

Has anyone tried the HSBC international account that they are trying to sell to my husband?

(I thought I'd posted a similar item a few days ago but it doesn't seem to have appeared, so apologies if I'm repeating myself.)

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