HSBC Offshore Sterling and Euro Account with CCF bank account

[sueinbushey]

Hi, moving to Correze later this year and have been looking into ways of making the financial side, exchange etc as easy as possible.

We have been talking to HSBC offshore who will offer a Sterling and Euro Account whereby we can transfer money between the two accounts without charge. They will also take care of the arrangements to open a french bank account with CCF, which supposedly will allow us then to transfer euros from our Euro offshore account directly into the CCF account or indeed to Notaires etc at a relative inexpensive cost of £15.00 per transaction.

Has anyone any experience of these arrangements or could anyone advise of an easier way around the whole problem?

Thanks

Sue

[Anton Redman]

The last time I sat down and talked to HSBC they were still chargeing 1 per cent exchange rate premium for moving money from Sterling to Euros. It took a fair amount of sheer bloody mindedness to get them to admit that this was the case.  The converse of this is that I have not found any organisation with a balance sheet which I trust which charges less.

 

[Simon47]

We have both EUR and GBP acconts with HSBC Jersey and a EUR account with HSBC-CCF in Toulouse (who also provide a EUR mortgage for our house).  We transfer EUR as needed from Jersey to HSBC-CCF.  Works very well.  As we live in the Far East, I do all the transfers / admin for the accounts by internet & e-mail - have never spoken to anyone in HSBC / HSBC-CCF !

[Mjc]

We have an account in France with CCF. We wondered about having an offshore HSBC account(s), and wondered what their charges would be and, perhaps more pertinent, what rate of exchange they would use.

Tried to ring HSBC in UK, but found we were talking to a gentleman somewhere in India. Told him what we wanted and where we lived, but when he asked if we wanted a French franc account (and this was last year) we hung up, being the second experience we have had of Indian call centres being somewhat less than perfect. We wrote to HSBC to report what had happened, but did not receive the courtesy of a reply.

Coming back to others experiences, how have HSBC rates of exchange compared with others on the same day?