Opening a Bank Account in Brittany

[Annesykes]

Can anyone advise us. We are planning to buy a holiday home in Brittany and reckon on opening a local bank account to pau bills etc.
Online banking will be essential as we won't be there most of the time.
My French isn't great.
As far as I can see a lot of the banks are regional and charges seem to vary.
Any advice as to where is good?
What forms of ID are acceptable? PAssposts obiously but what about proof of address, will electricity bills etc from Ireland suffice as proof of address?
My drivers licence has an out of date address!

[Bernice]

Credit Agricole Britline will do all that for you plus phone calls are in English. No charges except for debit or credit cards.
www.britline.com
Bernice

[Val_2]

Don't forget to keep a good amount in your account for unforseen charges and also if you are having work done in France you should have the money already to hand just as you would to go into a supermarket and pay by cheque or debit card because we can legally charge 10% interest for late payment here. We have had several clients recently who didn't have enough money in French accounts to cover our invoices and we had to wait for a further three weeks for it to be transferred which does not go down well here and I know of other artisans who will walk off the job if there are money problems.

[Liz]

Brit Line with Credit Agricole is probably the easy way out. Credit Agricole are big in Brittany as you might imagine. Lots of comments on this firm on the site, some good some bad!

We opended an account with La Poste when we fist came here and still have it. They seem to be about the cheapest around, a current account costs 2 Euros per year (going up to 2.50 in July!). It is not an internet account as such but you can have Internet access (currently free but they keep warning of a charge of 2.75 per quarter from July). You just walk into any post office and ask to open account. If it is a very small one they may ask you to come back a bit later when convenient for the only memeber of staff.

A passport and bill, as you suggest should be adequate for identification. Make sure it is a joint account and it is in the names of Monsieur ou Madame (not M et Mme) so that either one of you can sign cheques. You will need some French to do this but if you can manage 'Nous allons acheter une maison prs d'ici. Nous voudrions ouvrir un compte cheques, s'il vous plat' you should get there. They will complete the forms for you.

Paying you bills from Ireland should not be a problem, setting up direct debits being the simplest method from a distance. The procedure is explained on all the bills you get.

Liz (29)

[Sue56]

Opened our account with Credit Mutuel de Bretagne. All very straight forward. Telephoned for an appointment arrived with euros, passports, confirmation of address in Brittany (at that time had no bills only Attestation for the purchase which was sufficient), confirmation of UK address. We also took but they weren't needed birth & marriage certificates plus letter from UK bank confirming we were account holders there. The whole process took less that half an hour. Bank staff very helpful their broken English was about as good as my broken French and we managed fine.

Asked for cheque book and card to be sent to UK address - no problems there.

Have internet access and can check balance whenever we like. Can correspond via e-mail. Have transferred money with IBAN number from UK to France. Incur a charge in the UK but none in France. Pay a monthly fee of around 6 euros.

So far no complaints.