Listen Very Carefully

Just a pointer re paying cotisations for French health cover.If you are in receipt of ANY TYPE of pension eg an occupational pension then YOU DO NOT pay any cotisations for CPAM cover.This change came about when PUMA was introduced .Bazzer70-you will be surprised about the amount of tax you do not pay in France once abbatements etc are taken into account.
The french tax office will be very helpful.When you do your tax return there are boxes to fill in about the nature of your income Always describe your teachers pension as a pension de la fonction Brittanique/RU. Your state pensuion will be taxed in France solely and you should arrange for it to be paid tax free in the UK You will "better off" with this situation

bazzer70

Thanks ET - they’ve told me I cannot get an S1 until I start receiving my state pension.

Novocastrian

Can you provide a link to confirm that? I have HSBC accounts in Canada, France and the UK in chronological order started in Canada in about 2008/ Never had a problem yet....

Andyj100

https://www.reuters.com/business/cer...rm-2021-06-18/

so far I’ve seen no difference, and HSBC global transfer is still working. The App is still HSBC branded.

EuroTrash

According to HSBC, the migration of its personal banking operations to the My Money Group is in progress and scheduled to complete in the third quarter of 2023.
https://www.hsbc.fr/actualites/

Once complete, the business will be (perhaps) be operated by CCF (Crédit Commercial de France) - CCF are using this as an opportunity to make a comeback to high street banking for the elite. It might work or it might not...
https://www.lesechos.fr/finance-marc...du-ccf-1363945

Helen1964

I know this has nothing to do with HSBC, but if you’re looking for an interest-paying home for your sterling you might want to consider an NS&I Direct Saver account (2.3%) or Green Bond (3%).
I started the process of opening a joint account with my husband over the holidays and am halfway through. As the primary account holder, I’m now registered for online banking with them. My spouse - as the second account holder - can only register by post.
We did the initial set-up over the telephone. Then I was able to upload scans of my proof of ID and address, which were quickly accepted.
His proofs had to be certified by a civil servant/teacher/doctor etc. and must be submitted by post together with an application form signed by him and witnessed by another person.
Will let you know if I manage to complete the whole process successfully. So far so good.

EuroTrash

I'm sure you have done your due diligence Helen, but if you haven't checked NS&I out on Trustpilot you might just want to, before you give them your money.
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/nsandi.com

I'm saying that because 'im indoors (in Wales) recently had a nightmare with them.

He wanted to take a small amount out of his Ernies. They have a new system and withdrawals now have to be done online, there is no other option. And a couple of months back when he tried, the system was not fit for purpose. It involves receiving a code over the landline or via SMS - should be simples shouldn't it, it's such a common system. He'd registered his landline because mobile coverage in rural Wales is patchy and SMS don't always get through. He kept requesting the code but the phone never rang. To cut a long story short, he eventually discovered that the automated phone calls were being diverted by BT into the equivalent of a spam box (never even knew there was such a thing, and it doesn't seem to work very well because loads of junk calls get through). Then he figured out how to access this spam box and he found could listen to the automated call but the trouble was, the crucial first few seconds when the code was given, were cut off every time, and all he got was "this code will expire within X minutes, thank you, goodbye." So there was no way he would ever get the phone message via the landline, and he couldn't change the registered phone number to his mobile because he needed a code in order to even do that! Eventually after a number of phone calls to NS&I, which involved many hours on hold and endless security checks, he finally got them to change the phone number and eventually the SMS arrived on his mobile. End to end, including leaving it and trying again a few days later to see if it worked any better, and aborting attempted phone calls because he couldn't hang on any longer, and being fobbed off and having to ring back in the hopes of getting a different person, it took weeks to make the withdrawal: fortunately there was no urgency, but how stressful would it have been if he had needed the money fast. By this time he wanted nothing more to do with NS&I and instead of making a small withdrawal he took the whole lot out.
We looked at Trustpilot and there were hundreds of complaints, many of them about this same issue that the phone did not ring after a code was requested. I suppose BT was screening them all out although as far as I could see nobody else had discovered the BT spam box and reached the same conclusion. But wouldn't you think that whoever designed the system, would have checked that their automated phone calls weren't at risk of falling foul of BT's call screening.

Rant over, and hopefully they have got their act together now, but we were quite shocked at the awful customer service and the appalling overall experience, from an organisation that has always been a household name.

EDIT - just remembered another twist to the tale: when you ring, you are answered by a bot, but it doesn't tell you that it's a bot. At first he thought it was a particularly stupid human, and then of course when he realised he'd mistaken a bot for a human, he felt stupid - but if a voice asks you a series of questions in a vaguely relevant sequence, and appears to listen to your replies, why would you assume it's a bot? He couldn't get anywhere at all with the bot and in despair he emailed customer service, not expecting that to work, but surprisingly it did and they told him the magic formula for getting put through to a human. As I recall you have to use specific words, which then trigger the bot to say Would you like to speak to a customer service agent? and you say Yes, and then you are put into the queue to talk to somebody. But if you don't know which words to use as triggers, you're stuck.

Helen1964

Gosh, that’s appalling!

I did initially have a problem receiving the security code via my French mobile. I tried a couple of times but it never arrived. So I called them and the customer service agent put me through to the security team who scrapped the French mobile number I’d originally given them and noted my French landline and work numbers instead (you can list up to 3 numbers with them - so that if the code doesn’t arrive via one number, you can request that it be sent to another).
I then tried again and the codes now arrive via an automated call on my French landline without any problems.

As regards getting through to customer service, each time I’ve called there’s been a recorded message warning of possible long waits but in fact someone has always answered within a few minutes.

The only awful bit was the initial call to open the account. I hadn’t realized that - as I was opening a joint account - husband needed to be on the call as well. I had to drag him
out of bed. He was extremely grumpy. The NS&I lady had a thick African accent. Husband has a thick Russian accent and is - we think - dyslexic. Then he had to spell out his French address. I had my head in my hands by that stage and eventually snatched the phone off him much to everyone’s relief.

Right, I’ll proceed cautiously now. Once he’s registered, I’ll transfer a small sum and take it from there. Thanks!

Helen1964

Maybe it’s actually easier to get through if you’re calling from abroad. I had no problems:

Calling from outside the UK

You can use our dedicated number:

+44 1772 329880.

EuroTrash

I don't know what number he used. Maybe it is just resident Brits who get botted off LOL.
And I guess the screening system that blocked the automated calls is a BT thing.
So yeah, maybe it all works better from outside the UK.
They certainly do have a lot of hacked off customers on Trustpilot, but mostly about premium bonds.
Let us know how it goes!

bazzer70

HSBC international pays 4.16% on 500k. That’s pretty good as there will be no issues as to residency. This is one year fixed. I have 3 two year fixed account with UK challengers and best I am getting is 4.76 but with the cloak and dagger of no informing them when I move to France!

Pulaski

When inflation is currently reported as 7.1% in the US, 10.7% in the UK, 10.1% across the eurozone, and even France is reporting 6.2%, 4.16% is pretty bad - as good as a guarantee that you will be losing purchasing power.

bazzer70

yes - we all know that! So therefore I’m trying to minimise HOW much I am losing!

Helen1964

Will you still be able to receive security codes for your UK challenger accounts, Bazzer, when you move to France? My bank - Nationwide - won’t send codes to French mobiles. But fortunately they offer the option of using a card reader, which works well.
The Nationwide app only works now if you downloaded and activated it in the UK.

bazzer70

this is potentially an issue.
I don’t plan to operate these accounts and hopefully when it is close to maturity I will be able to write and request all funds get transferred to the associated nominated account. I will have my 1p mobile payg mobile account operating as long as they let me though too