French Banks

[Ron Avery]

[quote]Forgot to mention they also have internet banking. We were charged €0.50 for this but we're not actually sure if this is a one off sign up fee, a monthly fee or for each time we use it (if it is we'v...[/quote]

CA Nord Midi-pyrenees used to charge 0.50€ each month for up to 4 uses of their internet banking, then they came into the 20th Century and stopped charging at all, its now free  As you may have gathered, few CA's charge the same for the same thing and for some things they may as well have a different name, as you may have seen from recent posts, you cannot even pay money into another CA  with ease.

[Debra]

Ours may be the latter version (€.50 for four or maybe more logins a month) since there has only been one charge applied in the month we've had it even though we've logged on quite a few times to check if the money arrived and send emails.

We won't set any standing orders up on the account until we're sure we can get away with keeping it.  However, the weekly amount we can withdraw from any other branch of CA seems enough for us to manage along with the card, as we tend not to use cash but cards anyway.   Apparently yes, we do have to close this account and open another in Haute Vienne as they don't transfer accounts.  Having heard about all the different charging structures, I'm just not sure we'll want to do that!  I guess it will also depend on whether there is a CA bank nearby.  Once we have the property and can go over for a while without frantically visiting lots of properties perhaps we'll have time to leisurely look into it!

Debra

[BJSLIV]

Credit Agricole (nord) tarrif shows

Accès libre (par connexion) (Consultation hors virements interbancaires et bourse)* 0,50 €

So beware.

 

[Debra]

lol OK - I'll keep an eye out!  At least we don't need to log on to check since they send so many statements!

[Tourangelle]

I bank with Société Générale and they have no charge for their internet service and they are national. Makes life easier!

[Debra]

will maybe have to look out for one of those in the villages nearby to the hamlet we are buying in then!  Like I said - won't set anything else up on the account until we know for sure!  Hopefully we won't have to set up standing orders for anything immediately we own the property, but can pay by cheque until we make a decision.........

[Geoffreycoan<br><hr size="2" width="360" align="left">Les Vallees Gite, Brittany - <a target=_blank href="http:www.giteinbrittany.com">www.giteinbrittany.com<A>]

[quote]I bank with Société Générale and they have no charge for their internet service and they are national. Makes life easier![/quote]

We looked at all the usual suspects when wanting to open our French account and based on the forum's advice at the time, opted for La Poste.

Spent a pleasant hour with the little old lady in our local branch opening the account, her with no English and me with not a lot of French. Lots of forms to be filled in triplicate, copies required of passports and acte authentique's, etc (French Beauracracy at it's best) and the job was done.

All statements and cheque books are posted to the UK (I simply told her my UK address rather than my French address) and 18 months on we've had really very few problems. Service charge is E35 per year (for two debit cards and remote internet access) and I get a free E200 overdraft limit. Frightened myself when I accidently went overdrawn earlier in the year (I immediately thought I'd be blacklisted) but only got charged E2.50 for the actual E150 overdraft and E0.67 in interest.

Only problem of note we did have was that every time we went to France the debit cards would work fine for a week then stop working. Eventually I spotted that the cards only had a E500 per week limit on them and we were exceeding it ! So now when we go to France we tend to use cheques for everything (most supermarkets print the details on) and use the cards just for cash withdrawals.

So I think La Poste is great. I have heard that if you had your account for years and years (e.g. with CA) then you don't get charged, it's just now that all new accounts you're charged a monthly service fee. Apparently some of this is at the managers discretion so may be worth quibbling (if you're French is up to it) ...

Geoffrey

[Ron Avery]

[quote]We looked at all the usual suspects when wanting to open our French account and based on the forum's advice at the time, opted for La Poste.Spent a pleasant hour with the little old lady in our local ...[/quote]

"Spent a pleasant hour with the little old lady in our local branch opening the account"

And by the time you had finished the queue for stamps had gone twice round the church and reached the Boulangerie.

[John HoodDr John]

Buying Off Plan in France

Are banks being fair? We found a property in Rhone-Alpes in April 2004 that was due to begin construction in Oct 2004. The usual process of signing the provisional contract depended on a mortgage offer being in place.

The formalities were straight forward. We would not need the money until probably July 2005 as we could fund the deposit and first stage payment ourselves.

The bank, Credit Agricole, set up a current account alongside and asked us for funds to start it as we thought.

Since then, a standing charge of 262.50 euros has been deducted monthly. We have been told this is legally required insurance for the "mortgage".

As you might imagine, we were &remain a little diconcerted. There is currently no borrowings and no property that we own! Several meetings have failed to resolve what we consider "sharp practice". Insurance should start when risk is incurred, ie when the mortgage money is taken.

No-one, lawyers, other banks, estate agents has concurred that this is acceptable; indeed most have expressed surprise! 

Credit Agricole is standing by their action, our lawyer is on the case.

-What are other' experience?

 

John Hood

[Lori]

John Hood - I'm not clear on what kind of account Credit Agricole set-up?  Was it a loan?  Seems to me it must have been some sort of construction loan.  It is their policy to require mortgage insurance on all loans.  The price, in my opinion, for this insurance is ridiculous (and based on the amount of the loan) and if you (the borrower) has ANY medical maladie, you can expect a big boost in the premium as it is somewhat like term-life mortgage insurance.  You die it pays off the loan. 

The bank should have explained this to you BEFORE you signed for an account.  If they didn't, they certainly need to now.

I believe all banks do this, but I'm sure others here can say.

 

 

[Val3]

I opened a CA Britiline account last year and I'm only charged for the Mastercard. When the chap from Caen phoned to set up the account he mentioned about a 5Euro/month charge for extra services (I think it also covered insurance on the card) and I chose not to opt for it. I think this maybe the monthly charge that some of you mention. However, I still have free internet access to the account, regular statements etc.

My only problem (and it's not specific to CA or Britline) is that I'm still based in UK and need to pay relatively small amounts (£500-£1000) into the account at a time which my UK bank charges a fortune for, the currency companies don't seem interested in sums like this so I end up buying traveller's cheques and posting them which is a faff because of the limits on the value of mail imposed by the Post Office. Doea anyone know of a better way?

Thanks

Val3

[Geoffreycoan<br><hr size="2" width="360" align="left">Les Vallees Gite, Brittany - <a target=_blank href="http:www.giteinbrittany.com">www.giteinbrittany.com<A>]

[quote]I opened a CA Britiline account last year and I'm only charged for the Mastercard. When the chap from Caen phoned to set up the account he mentioned about a 5Euro/month charge for extra services (I th...[/quote]

Most ways of transferring funds to your French account involve rip-off fees at one end or another. There's been previous postings on this subject but my preference (as suggested on this forum) is to use moneybookers (www.moneybookers.com) - you transfer money from your UK account to them (no charge) then use moneybookers to withdraw the funds into your French account (for a small - €1.20 ? flat fee).

Apart from the small flat fee you only pay a nominal foreign exchange spread which I think is 0.8%.

I use this route every time I want to transfer money to my French account. It takes a couple of weeks in total to arrive (1 week to moneybookers, 1 week thereon to France) but it's cheap.

Other alternatives I've seen proposed are to use a Nationwide Flexaccount/Credit card to withdraw money from a French ATM (no fees but still incurr an overseas exchange rate conversion) or use paypal (you need to setup an account on both paypal.co.uk and paypal.fr), but you get charged 3.5% for the conversion

Cheers, Geoffrey

[bryansmith]

Having had a CA bank account now for nearly a year (whilst living in England but travellig regularly to France) I can say that after many transactions (by cheque and by debit card) we have only been charged for setting up the two debit cards on the account. As we are shortly moving to France we have started to transfer cash each month. We tried our own bank and several other of the'big five' but the costs were prohibitive.

We were then told about HIFX which has been really good for us. The contract is fixed for one year, so you take a chance on currency exchange fluctuations but there is no charge whatsoever for the transfer or the service provided and as yet no charge from CA.

The exchange rate we agreed for the contract has generally been in our favour for the three months so far, although I appreciate this may not always be the case.

At least we know exactly how many euros are going into our account every month which suits us well.