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Transferring money from English bank to French bank


Julie Mills
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We have a house in France and a bank account for payment of bills by direct deduction by the relevant organisations.  WE have great difficulty getting any bank to transfer money into our French account.  It usually ends up that we take a lot of cash with us and pay it into the bank when we visit which is not always convenient.

Can anyone recommend a good bank/way of transferring cash at a reasonable speed/charge from an English Bank to a French bank?  (We bank with Lloyds TSB, Yorkshire Bank and Nationwide Building Society) all of whom cannot help!

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Not much help to you but...its a problem we are having, our solution is to transfer a larger amount using one of the currency co's in the magazine, much better rate of exchange...say 1.46 as opposed to 1.40 but its down to whether you have the lump of cash to sit in your french acct. If there is a cheap, frequent way, i'd like to know as well
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Hi. I transfer largish (>£5000) amount as required using HIFX who seem very efficient. For one currency deal their minimum trade is for £5000. They also offer a regular payments service where you can transfer more frequent or smaller amounts, which might suit your purpose. As pointed out you would get a much better exchange rate than your bank and save enormously on transfer charges.

G.

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We have used Nationwide to do a Swift transfer to our French Bank for large amounts but there is always a charge about £20 I believe and usually a poor exchange rate, however if you only want to keep your French account topped up to pay the bills then taking money from your Nationwide Flex account via a French ATM cost nothing and a reasonable rate of exchange, you can then pay it into your French bank account. We do this all the time, also it is much better when using a UK credit card in France to use Nationwide Visa again no charges.

Failing that you really do have to go with a currency broker like Worldwide currencies.

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create an account with moneybookers.com

I have have set up my hsbc account  to send a £100 per month to my Moneybookers account which I let build up to £400-500 and then transfer to my CA Britline account to keep a balance against expected bills (insurances, water, electric taxes foncieres/habitation) and to give me "holiday" spending money when I'm actually in France.

As long as you take into account the time lag for money to reach  moneybookers from UK account and to reach the onward account French when leaving moneybookers it seems a cheap, effective and sensible solution.

Others may well disagree, but it works for me!

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I'll also endorse the Moneybookers.com option.

I've used it several times during the past year. Good exchange rates and a fixed fee of £2.39.

I have internet banking with HSBC and a kind of internet statement viewing with Credit Agricole, so it's all done online. 

Takes 3-4 working days for money to appear in Moneybookers account then a further couple of days to withdraw into French account. Moneybookers email me when they've received a credit.

  

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Everybody has different priorities of course, but we use the Relay system from our Nat West accounts, a £10 charge, the current inter-bank commercial exchange rate (not tourist rate) and a prompt reliable transaction. Other methods may offer lower fees, higher rates etc but to me its worth two or three pounds (that's all the difference usually amounts to) for an official transaction, covered by guarantees.

The currency brokers etc, although mostly perfectly reputable, come outside the statutory banking regulatory bodies. If cost is an issue, then our way is certainly a lot less than charges imposed by French banks for dealing with non-French cheques. For small amounts, then taking out cash from the ATM and paying it in across the counter is a very simple and effective option, but some French banks, particularly larger branches, are getting rather strange about dealing with deposits in cash (in fact there are some that reportedly won't accept deposits of any type over the counter, you have to put a paying-in slip and cheques in an envelope and put that in a box, with no official receipt).

I know too that there will be stories of things that have gone wrong with banks but we have never had any difficulties with this particular system (I wouldn't trust Lloyds TSB with a 1€ piece though, but that's just my own experience).

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Hi, we have an account with travelex.  we transfer large or small amounts, usually get a very good exchange rate, no charges and so far we have not had any probs.  We do all the money transfers from our account to their account online and it all seems much quicker and easier than using the bank 

Kimberley

chadeniers 17

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[quote]we have an account with lloyds and britline banks, we just send a cheque from our lloyds account into britline bank they convert it at the commercial rate into euros.[/quote]

"we have an account with lloyds and britline banks, we just send a cheque from our lloyds account into britline bank they convert it at the commercial rate into euros."

When you say 'commmercial rate' that is probably your Banks' rate, not the Foreign exchange rate, amd what does each cheque cost you per transaction. 

I have just sent a hefty sum via a company called 'Foreign Currency Direct'. (There is another one called 'Currency Direct' anyone dealt with either?).  On the 5th Sept I got a rate of 1.4625 to the pound. (the ForEx rate on the exchanges was around 1.4733 at the time) I was charged a total cost of £27.00 and my bank in France will charge me about 10 eruos for handling the transfer. Does anyone think this good, bad or average??

However, from the time the cash leaves my UK account it takes close to 12 or 14 days to arrive in my French account. That's quite a lot of interest someone is accruing and it's not me.

 

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[quote]we have an account with lloyds and britline banks, we just send a cheque from our lloyds account into britline bank they convert it at the commercial rate into euros.[/quote]

Me too! This is a very simple and cost effective way of doing it.
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Hi,

Try HIFX. There is generally an advert in the magazine with their 'phone number. We used them to purchase a property and from next year want to move a regular amount each month into a French bank account. The advantage of using a broker is that some make no charge for the transaction as they make their money when they purchase the currency. We only have to commit ourselves to a six month contract (direct debit) but can go for up to two years if the rates are good. You also get a rate approximately 4-6 euros better.

I have no affiliation to HIFX.

Regards

Paul

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****I was charged a total cost of £27.00 and my bank in France will charge me about 10 eruos for handling the transfer. Does anyone think this good, bad or average??

However, from the time the cash leaves my UK account it takes close to 12 or 14 days to arrive in my French account. That's quite a lot of interest someone is accruing and it's not me.****

Hi Guimbarde

Not having been here v long I am still using my First Direct account for transfers. Last transfer I made last month at 1.455 (no idea if that was good or bad) and paid £21 charge. The transfer was made the same day from my First D account to our Banque Populaire account with no charge at this (the French) end.

I am looking to set up something cheaper eventually but for the moment this is fine and I certainly cannot argue with the speed!

Sue

 

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The cheapest ways to go if you're using "proper" banks (ie not  hifx et al) are:

1) Plonk cash in a Nationwide Flexaccount and lift it out in cash in France, then deposit it in your account. This costs virtually nothing (interbank rate plus under .25%); you can lift up to £500 per day ie about 750€. Excellent way to do it if you live here and aren't transferring thousands and thousands; not really suitable for your initial purchase though.

2) Plonk cash in an HSBC Premier account in the UK or France and either lift it out in the other country in cash or do an online transfer to an HSBC account in the other country. Supposedly this is free and at interbank rates. If you meet the Premier account opening conditions this is an excellent way of doing two way transfers. You can also plonk money in an ordinary HSBC card based savings account and lift it out free in an HSBC machine (ONLY an HSBC machine) in France; although HSBC will assure you that it's impossible to use a savings account abroad, I can assure you that it is possible and last time I used it, it was completely free (because the bank are so confident that it won't work, there are no provisions in the savings account terms & conditions to apply any international charges); not interbank rate even 'cos, of course, it is the same bank that you're using.

3) As above but using Citibank. This is more for "the masses" in that the account opening conditions aren't nearly so onerous. Open a Citibank UK Direct Current Account, then open a Euro savings account and link your cash card to that. Deposit money in the current account, swap it into euros (interbank rate plus 0.9%) and withdraw the cash over here. You can also deposit French cheques (about 2 weeks to clear) in the euro account at no charge and transfer back into sterling at the above charges. If you subsequently open a Citibank France account, you can transfer the money online at no charge.

 

 

Arnold

 

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Arnold

That is good advice if you have a house here and still live in the UK, but I have never seen an HSBC cash machine in SW France, perhaps they only have branches in the big cities and you do mean the French HSBC offshoot

I think it is worth making clear that if you live in France few if any of your options are actually possible, I think we established some time back that you cannot open ( legally) a Nationwide, nor many other UK bank accounts if you now live in France.

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There are loads of HSBC branches all over France. However, you need to look pretty closely at the branches to identify them as they're currently operating under the various names of the bank that they bought some years ago (this will change over the course of the next year as they're all being rebranded HSBC France). Go through http://www.cartegie.com/ccf_agences2/ to find out where they are and http://www.ccf.com/ccf/fr/index.do to find out what they're called. For instance, in Languedoc they operate as Societe Marsellaise de Credit (SMC) and have a similar number of branches to BNP and Societe Generale.

I'm not sure about Nationwide but both Citibank and HSBC (if you have a Premier account) will let you open accounts in the UK even if you don't live there so those options are available. I suspect that Barclays will let you do this too as they also operate in France but I'm not sure (in any event Barclays France is a bit expensive).

You can legally open other accounts anywhere in Europe even if you don't live in the country but not all banks will allow you to. However, it is much easier to have opened the accounts before you leave the UK and nearly all banks will allow you to change your address to anywhere else in Europe (and probably elsewhere in the world), the main exception being the internet banks who, in general, won't let you do this.

In practice, we use the Citibank route ourselves all the time. More convenient than HSBC as you don't need to hunt an HSBC machine to get the free withdrawals and you've also got a euro account which makes it easier to keep track of what's left in the account if you're largely operating in euros.

 

Arnold

 

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Arnold

"There are loads of HSBC branches all over France" 

NO there are not  They are ONLY in big cities or perhaps more in the North of France.

There is  is not ONE HSBC affilated bank in Departments 11, 12, 46, 47, 81 or 82, a fairly big chunk of SW France, I think you would agree.  The nearest ones quoted for ALL that area are in Toulouse or Bordeaux  I'm off to Toulouse airport now, its a 2 hour drive

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That website is incredibly misleading. There are about a dozen or more branches of HSBC's subsidiaries in dept 11 (I'm not as familiar with the other depts you quote so couldn't say).

I'd thought that it linked through to the specific towns that they have branches in but apparently it just shows where HSBC-CCF branches are. For instance, in our own case (dept 66), it says that the nearest branch is in Montpellier yet there are at least three branches in Perpignan alone (of SMC and Banque de puy de Parseval, both with widespread branch networks around here).

From my own experience, their branch network has a relatively similar distribution to that of BNP and Societe Generale ie it's unlikely that you'll have a branch in your village but they probably have one in your nearest town and several in a city.

At any rate, it should become a whole lot more obvious where their branches are over the course of the next 12 months as they're rebranding the whole lot to HSBC-France. Hopefully, they'll sort out their website branch locator as part of that

 

Arnold

 

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We chose the easy route - Barclays in the UK - Barclays in France - they have a very helpful team in Paris that made life very easy when buying our house over here.

Would not know where their ATM's are as we use who ever is nearest when we need cash.

Have not found them more expensive than any others we researched.

CB works where ever we have needed it to - transfers very quick and exchange rates so far have been as competitive as the money brokers.

Although the same company the UK branch and the Paris branch treat each other as seperate companies but our two branches have been very helpful Also use internet banking for the UK bits and pces

James

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If you're using Barclays, you can use the ATMs of BNP at no charge.

They're more expensive basically because they charge a "membership fee" (£150 a year last time I checked) and as far as I know, don't give you interbank exchange rates on online transfers (this adds anything up to 7% or so when you change money). Actually, I'm not sure if they do Barclays UK to Barclays France transfers free either. Aside from the charges it does look like an excellent service though.

 

Arnold

 

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We have an account with Yorkshire bank which has, as most do I think, a facility to make payments. I pay the money in sterling to our Moneybookers euro account, which two weeks ago took two days, then transfer it to CA Britline, which also took two days. the only charge was by Moneybooker.

All I have done is to set up the moneybookers account and set the details on the Yorkshire bank payments section. This seems to do it without any charges and as the money arrives at Britline in Euros there is no charge there either

 

Hope this helps

Alan

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What nobody has mentioned is the difficulty in getting cash out of French banks, even by cheque.  Evidently, it's a way of frustrating the black economy.  If we need cash, we take it from M&S or First Direct, both of which offer extremely good exchange rates. To transfer cash to pay direct debits, mortgage etc, we also use First Direct, whose rate is generally better than the commercial providers such as currencies4less.  The transfer can be done over the phone at a charge of £21.
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Getting money out is as nothing compared to closing an account.

Thanks to a series of hassles with Credit Agricole, we decided last year that enough was enough and that it was time to close the account. First off, you can't just close an account at a counter and we had to see a "customer adviser". Normally, that would mean an appointment but we managed to have our "appointment" there and then. Then, she wasn't "our" customer adviser and thought that we should see him first. No, I wanted to close the account there and then (one of the hassles is that our customer adviser takes loads of notes and does nothing at all).

Filled in the form to close the account and to transfer the balance of 250€ or so to our new bank. Cut up the card and handed it to them. I'd have torn up the chequebook but that was one, of many, things that our customer adviser hadn't bothered to order for us.

Six months went by then received a note saying that our account was 100€ odd overdrawn. Went in again and this time saw our customer adviser. He didn't know anything about us closing the account, hadn't made the 250€ balance transfer and, thanks to more mistakes and charges, we were now 130€ overdrawn.

I've filled in yet another form to close the account. I don't think that they'll bother.

In the meantime, they continue to collect 5€ a month service charge, continue to pay a direct debit that we never authorised and continue to add overdraft charges (plus more charges because we end up going over the limit set). All this on an account that we have NEVER USED!!

 

Arnold

 

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Had a similiar problem with Britline, opened an account ten years ago with e500.00, never received a statement, never used the account. Emailed them this year about closing the account after sending a fax stating the same thing. Account balance at closure was e188.00 - with no use.

The cheque for the balance never arrived. Emailed them to ask where it was - got no response. Sent two faxes, no response. Phoned up to say to ask where my money was - they could do nothing as the account was closed. Goodbye five hundred euros, goodbye Britline..

Have resolved to keep as much money as possible out of the French banking system.

Currently investigating using Belgium banks to handle my French current account needs...

sue
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I asked the same question a couple of months ago & a couple of kind people suggested Moneybookers.com. I have tried them out & can recommend the service. I transfer sterling from our Lloyd's current account to Moneybookers which takes approx 3 days at no charge. I then transfer from Moneybookers to our Britline account in Euros which takes approx 3 days, We get the rate as listed on BBC Teletext (page 241) which is far better than any bank or tourist exchange available regardless of amount. The cost to do this is approx £2.00 with no hidden fees!. I tried it out with £25.00 to make sure all worked well, I have since transferred sums of £100, £500, £1,250 with no problems at all. I only wish I had known about this when I purchased our "little bit of France" in the Vendee as not only would I have recieved a better spot rate (like for like) the fees are cheaper & the transfer quicker!.

Regards

 

Marc

 

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