pjw27

Can anyone recommend a good French bank to apply for a non-resident's current account?

I'm already up to my eyeballs in paperwork trying to get a mortgage, so a bank which requires the least documentation to open an account and is fairly quick in doing so would be preferable.

Many thanks.

L'Acajou

Not sure there is a French bank which requires little documentation, sorry. We have had Credit Agricole accounts since before we moved over 6 years ago and recently had to take our passports in... we find them very very slow, heavy on paperwork and not very communicative. According to our accountants this tardiness is due to the financial climate. We think also it depends on the individual branch and advisor as we have had far better service in the past. And they are deemed to be the best of a bad bunch In our experience, you hear nothing for ages, start to panic, then panic some more and finally everything happens at once. Eventually.

Good Luck

Sue

Ka Ora!

Hah Funny, All banks want lots of paperwork here there is no easy way. I guess you could try HSBC but they are mainly limited to cities.

Credit Agricole's service has become a joke, I reduced our Agent to tears in a meeting explaining how bad her customer service skills were. It all went pear shaped when they moved from being a Front facing bank "ie you could get cash from a person" to Machines only which seem to be the growing trend in France, Do away with the staff and have a line of cash point machines.

Martin Parker

Before we moved out permanently, we had an account with Barclays France. They have English speaking representatives and you can do everything online. As far as I remember there was not a huge amount of paperwork, but it was a while ago.

Now we are resident, we have moved to Credit Agricole. We closed the Barclays account as they have too few branches - our nearest was over an hour away.

Our regional Credit Agricole has an English speaking department and they have been very helpful in getting things sorted out with our local branch.

Be prepared for a very different banking experience!! Everything is charged and nothing seems to happen quickly. Banks in France are run on a regional basis, and can vary hugely between regions. Our CA sounds very good compared to some of the stories I have heard of other regional CA's.

dennerlymum

best bank in france..... isnt that an oxymoron?? (I think thats the word,!)

I have yet to meet anyone who would recommend any french bank, myself included. All of them are slow, want to charge you for their ineptitude and require oodles of paperwork to get anything done!

Blackladder

We opened a bank account with BNP Paribas in 20 min. At our local branch nobody speaks English, so a reasonable command of French would appear to be vital to get this done, but I am certainly satisfied with BNP so far. We are not resident in France yet, but our local BNP sends us monthly statements to our home address in Sweden without extra charge, also they offered a reasonable insurance policy on our house in French (mandatory requirement to have insurance when you sign for and take over ownership in France). They faxed up copies of the insurance policy and receipt of payment to our Notaire so he could conclude the sale.

BNP are definitely worth a try, but as I say, you probably need to speak half decent French.
Good luck!
Blackie

cjm

We use CIC and have Englsh speaker as our account contact. Not too slow but they do need a shove every so often. Also able to personally mail the guy via his branch office and if he is on hols, voila, another English speaker steps in to hold the reins. When French language improves it should all work well.

Ka Ora!

Funny enough we opened an Acc with CIC started out ok, But I get the impression they are working/shifting in the CA direction.

cjm

All okay, so far and has been since we moved to France two years back. Even before remote contact was decent. That they dedicate a bi-lingual member of staff to look after Brit accounts shows some enterprise. Costs are costs and all banks are similar I have found. That I mailed the 'advisor' to cancel some PRVLs and said he could ring if needed - well he rang. If that's part of the cost annually, then fine with me.
Comments here on CA aren't very positive and I note that watching Andy Murray, you can't fail to see the massive BNP Paribas advertising. Can't recall the exact words of their corporate slogan, but thought it translated as 'helping to change the world'.

brickweb

We went in to Credit Agricole with our passports, utility bill and marriage certificate. We received excellent service from them and our current account and savings account was opened within hours. She even set up credit/debit cards and an overdraft facility. The lady spoke excellent English and was very helpful. When we returned home in the UK our details were there (by post) and can log in easily on the Internet. We have emailed our account manager on a couple of ocassions with questions and got swift and personal response that day. So I have only good things to say about Credit Agricole who, so far have provided great service. We transferred money via HiFX in to the account and our account manager emailed us to re-assure us it arrived safely without us even having to ask ourselves!

dmu

[QUOTE=cjm;8597692]
Comments here on CA aren't very positive

If I can add my own experience, I was always with BNP when I worked in Paris and OH was with the Crédit Lyonnais. Both were OK, but there weren't any branches of either when we moved down south, and we chose the CA.
We still maintain an account with them, for the simple reason that it was too much of a bother to do the paperwork to transfer all the pensions, reimbursements, DDs, etc... to another establishment. For day-to-day finances, we transfer the maximum to the Caisse d'Epargne which is now our bank,
The staff there is human - at the CA, if they attempted to smile, their faces would crack.
In fact, it all comes down to relations with the staff....

L'Acajou

CA seem to move their staff round a lot, no-one seems to be at our local branch for more than two years, although there are always several members of staff who speak English really well. The delays occur when paperwork has to go to head office, seemingly. We have just had to sign documents for the third time in three weeks, due to admin errors... Not impressed.
If you take cash into them they seem to panic and you get ushered into an office! Hubby has an account with CIC who seem OK, he opened an account really easily, then a couple of years later they wanted loads of forms filling in, passport etc.

le plumber

Can't say I'm very fond about the CA either. At the present time being we have personal/professional accounts with them plus savings, but after a bit of a "misunderstanding" (and more than the odd cock up from time to time), I've already told them we wont be staying. They started to send letters excusing themselves but I couldn't care less and I pretty much did the same as Ka ora! by bring them to almost tears. At the moment we're looking to change to another bank and BNP looks like it could be the answer, but that's only because we have future projects and it could be a lot easier banking with them.

Otherwise La poste offers a good service as does Caisse d'épargne.

It does depend a lot on who is actually looking after you're account and not the bank itself. However, saying that la Banque Populaire is a useless bank and the people who work there are just as crap.

Ka Ora!

Dont worry Credit Agricole give loads to begin with, Its so they can charge you more later.

dennerlymum

we are with Bank Populaire and I have to say we have been less than pleased with them. They did a big ad campaign amongst the uk contractors here around 3 years ago; many joined up and none are happy. We have recently needed to extend our mortgage and the whole process has been nothing but crap! The guy in charge of our account seems incapable of picking up a phone and replying to simple requests, he promises everything and offers nothing; this process began as an urgent request due to changed circumstances in February, and has still not yet been resolved. My blood pressure is rising just thinking about it!!!
I also notice they charge for EVERYTHING at the moment. Overall my advice would be dont join Bank Populaire!
Next step will be removing my account and it will be soon I think!!