Tweedpipe

Fwiw, I find it difficult to comprehend why anyone would solely want a virtual bank as opposed to a real 'bricks & mortar' bank.
On a few occasions we have found a face-to-face meeting here with the bank's adviser absolutely essential. Twice we came out of meetings with far more practical, 'personalised' financial advise than we could ever have found or known about with a virtual bank. There will be a time at least once when most folks in France will say, "this is getting us nowhere, why can't we sit down with someone to talk us through this financial quagmire."
As DelBoy would say, "You know it makes sense!"

I should have added that we have even had a bank official here, witness an official (non finance related) 'Proof of living' document for us, required for a UK organisation. Very, very convenient indeed.

Novocastrian

I completely agree with that. I do about 98% of my banking online, but it's the critical 2% where most important stuff happens.

EuroTrash

I agree, up to a point, especially when most bricks & motar banks also offer internet banking so you can have the best of both worlds.
But, AFAIK Britline is the only bank, virtual or bricks & mortar, that specialises in providing French bank accounts for Brits who don't actually live in France and therefore have difficulty providing the documents that French banks generally require. And Britline happens to be virtual, there is no bricks & mortar equivalent.

petitefrancaise

Just a note to add that the HSBC at 71 rue Alsace Lorraine, Toulouse and the one at Blagnac (if it's still there) would be an excellent place to go to get an account set up. They are used to foreigners ( nearly all the airbus expats get sent there) and the staff all speak english. Online banking with them is great too.

Try also setting up an HSBC account in the UK and then asking them to transfer it to France for you. A lot of Brits coming to the US do this to help them at first.

cardi

La banque postale offers online account opening facilities. You only have to have an EU address. You should also open a livret A with them which requires little proof. You can access cash, pay by RIB and have direct debits for property taxes and utility bills.

south_bound

My experience has been the opposite. I opened an account with LCL on moving here and got so fed up with them and their incompetence to do even the basic things right that I decided to change. The problem is that everyone I spoke with had similar issues with all the other local bank branches - losing documents and cheques, forever sending random papers for signing, being called into the branch to sign papers only to get hard sell on their product of the month, fees appearing and needing to be refunded because they are wrong...

I got an account set up with ING Direct and all great for the past 6 or 7 years. Anything that can't be sorted out online gets done on the phone immediately. I have set up other products as well - Livret and Assurance Vie, all with higher interest rates or lower fees than LCL and others. My bank card is fee free and can be used in any ATM in Europe without fees (Euro withdrawals) and worldwide with fees. I have kept the LCL account open just to annoy them and to make it easier to pay in cheques instead of sending them away to ING, which is the only inconvenience I can find for online only banks.

Chatter Static

As I said earlier there is one in Carcassonne.