Gabriela1980

Hello everyone!
Im starting this new thread as I researched and read through the old ones but did not find any info I need.
Basically we are moving to France at the end of May this year and i am aware that we will need to open french bank account in order to be able to rent etc etc.
I also know that opening a french bank account can be rather difficult. I am currently with the HSBC in the UK. I went to speak to my brach manager who reassured me that they can open french bank account ( or account at their french branch) with no issues, it will cost us £100 and take about 1 month. Any thoughts about it? It sounds too easy to be true and I do not want to waste £100 just to be told in France that it is not the right account???

Thank you!

graham.miln

I am surprised at the £100 charge for opening an HSBC account from abroad. We set up an HSBC France account via HSBC Australia, for free, quite a few years ago now.

Since then we have moved banks, but have never been charged for opening or closing an account in France.

Be aware that accounts are still heavily tied to a physical branch. Even traditional banks offering "online only" accounts tend to link you to a specific branch. You may need to visit that branch occasionally to sort out problems, register for some services, and the like.

Others should be along to provide suggested banks and approaches from the UK.

Gabriela1980

Hi Graham! Thank you for your useful reply! When you opened the HSBC account in France via your HSBC account in Australia, was it accepted in ok by potential landlords and people who need to see that you have a bank account in France?

dmu

Hi, a quick search in the Pages Jaunes gives a list of banks in Céret, but not an HSBC. The nearest HSBC branch is in Castelnaudary or Carcassonne....
Potential landlords usually require proof (by payslips) that your regular monthly income is 3-4 times the rent, whatever bank account you've got...

Gabriela1980

Thanks for the info! ;o)))))

graham.miln

We had no problems with people accepting our French HSBC bank account. What mattered in those first months was being able to write French cheques.

I do not remember anyone asking about the bank account directly.

Be sure to get a receipt for any rental payments - be they semi-formal, short term, or long term. Those receipts will help later on proving your period of residency.

As an aside, if you need to supply an address before moving, investigate the inexpensive poste-restante service. While not a formal address, it can be good to know about.

scrubbedexpat056

Hi,
I have mentioned this in another thread, but we have opened a Britline account with Credit Agricole using our UK address. It took 3 weeks, including my mistake in sending a wrong document, and it was surprisingly efficient. Everything is in English except for a few of the forms, which are the originals from CA rather than the new English speaking dept. ones. These only need signing or initialling so no big deal there. It can be opened with as little as 250 euros with only a slightly restricted use of the debit cards and costs nothing to set up except for a fee of £9 to accept the first payment by international transfer if under 2500 euros and paid through their subsidiary transfer company run by one of the major ones. I checked their rates and they seemed pretty much as the others. Obviously being related to the bank helps a bit with peace of mind, knowing the money is likely to end up where it should. They also have English speaking people at the end of the phone.
Others have mentioned possible higher costs and that may well be true for more complicated transactions, but we will only be using it to receive our monthly income and set up direct debits when we buy a property. The running costs for us seemed reasonable.
Obviously it could all turn into a nightmare when we start using it in anger, but our experience so far, one cheque sent by post, is positive. My wife even complained that in some of the forms she was addressed by my surname, which she didn't take when we got married, causing two possible problems. One, that she was called different names in different bank forms and two, that she resented not being called by her own name. They responded very quickly, apologising for the error, saying that it was the use of some of the untranslated original CA forms that related to the normal French banking system and sent us new forms to sign and initial with the correct name.
So far I'm impressed.

Novocastrian

I opened a French HSBC account while in Canada based on my HSBC account there. A few years later I opened another one in the UK in the same way. The account in France is fine for every french need.

As dmu mentions, physical branches of the HSBC are thinly spread (ours, luckily, is in Caen only about 40 minutes away) but the need to visit a branch is increasingly less common as almost all services can be accessed online at HSBC.fr

In addition, if you are or become a Premier customer, the opening of other HSBC accounts abroad is free of charge and you can access global view online which allows instant transfer of funds between all accounts.

It works for us.

Gabriela1980

Thanks so much for the info! I shall proceed my HSBC appointment and open the french account

Gabriela1980

That is a very helpful info! I will check them out! Thank yo for your time and expertise! ;o)

Gabriela1980

The poste-restante is a very interesting service indeed! Thank you! ;o)

LowriderChevy

"I also know that opening a french bank account can be rather difficult."
In fact it is extremely easy to open a French bank account. What is difficult is choosing the right one. Unlike the UK banks, the ones here charge you just for handling your money and they make it fairly difficult to access more than a certain amount daily. All branches of CA when I first arrived had an English speaking liason person that was very handy, apart from when I decided I had been shafted long enough with high charges and being treated like scum when entering any other CA than my own branch. It took over 5 months to get free of their clutches. And this was after being assured by the charming English speaker that it was all done and dusted. I am now with LaPosteBanque paying one third as much in charges and can pay in or take out cash anywhere in France, as well as online.
Do your research. Read/translate the scales of charges on websites and be aware. They are there to make money out of you, not provide a service.

Novocastrian

Duh, Sherlock.

AlpacaBrew

It does seem tricker to open an account before being a resident. BNP Paribas wanted us to get a letter from our UK bank saying that we were a good customer. HSBC UK said they could not give a written "opinion" on a customer and would only (for a small fee) write a letter saying how long we had been customers and what our current balance was.

I did ask HSBC UK about whether being a customer here makes it easier to open an account with HSBC France. After initially denying that HSBC France existed(!) they conceded that they might waive the fee for the letter above if it were addressed to the manager of an HSBC branch in France but that, beyond that, we'd be on our own - unless we wanted to pay £100 to HSBC International to initiate the French account opening from the UK.

Back to BNP and the lady there suggested we should get some friends in France to write a letter saying we are staying at their house, which would then get rid of the need for a reference letter from our UK bank!

I'm now wondering if we should just open a French post office bank account, which does at least seem to be geared up for non-resident account holders and to give you proper national coverage.

Gabriela1980

Thank you AlpacaBrew for the info! Well the HSBC has changed their tune with us now..initially saying that it is not a problem and will cost us "only" £100. But now saying that apart from the £100 fee we also have to have at least 2500euro coming into the account every month if solo account, if joint than 3500euros...Ridiculous!