Blackladder

Bonjour les braves!

I know we've had our rantarama on here about French banks, but this may be new and I would really appreciate some help.

My pension is payable from Sweden, where as some of you know I worked for 40 years. The pension is payable from 4 different sources, 2 from the State and 2 privately. The 2 from the State consist of a basic amount and a supplementary amount. The first is quite decent in size, the second is tiny. On both of these transactions I have been charged 22.90 Euros, hence a total of over 45 Euros a month or 540 Euros a year. The charges are called 'Commission d'emission' (9.00 Euros) and 'Commission de change' (13.90 Euros). Now this seems unreasonable to the point of stand and deliver. My question is whether all banks do the same (my bank is BNP) or is it worth shopping around and threatening BNP that we will change bank if they don't lower their charges. We have quite a large sum of money on deposit with them, but I don't know whether that carries any clout here in France.
Merci d'avance and in case I missed anybody 'Bonne Année et bonne santé!
Blackie

loy loy

I'm not quite sure I understand so forgive me.

But I transfer money into my French bank account from the UK every month. I pay nothing in France but I pay £27 in the UK. This is because I use a company not my bank to transfer the money to get a better rate.

Domino

here in Spain, I get my UK pension paid into my Spanish bank account in Euros by DWP. They get a very good rate (better than I can get) and there are no charges from them nor from my bank (it is a pensioners "no commissions" account)

last time I wanted to transfer money from Halifax (who are part of LTSB) they wanted £27 to make the transaction

hth

Peabrain

Hi,
When my father died I had the money that I'd inherited transferred to France through La Banque Postale. This was 9 years ago so things may have changed since, but when I looked at what my own bank, the Crédit Lyonnais, would have charged, and then at the Banque Postale's charges, the difference was enormous; the Banque Postale being dirt cheap. "There was no photo" as the French say. So try them.
PB

cab47

french *ankers charge around 40 euro p/a fee for having a debit card
i was approached at le poste by this guy trying to sell their accounts / insurance etc and i said this was my main issue with my bank , so he said yes but card is insured if lost , which dosnt make any sense when its chip and pin to withdraw - cant see them paying out if someone steals my card and happens to guess my pin........................
RIPOFF

cyrian

dankers

PDN

Such fees are I think normal. UK banks charge around £25 to send to EU banks Could be worse, I have one client who pays me from outside the EU and the charges are around £25 at both the sending and receiving banks

White Trash

I made a sillly mistake one day when making a purchase on ebay Germany. I didn't notice that the seller did not accept payment by PayPal. He sent me instead his bank details to make a direct transfer. The item I bought was under €5 but the cheapest method of transfer from the dreaded CA was about €25! Needless to say, this event and many others prompted my move to La Banque Postale. I have a card, easy access to cash into and out of my account anywhere in France, and can do my own bank to bank transfers FREE online. All this for onlh €30 a year in charges. One third of the fee with CA which was less functional.