Banking in France
 

Our daughter will be attending the Univ. of Lyon the next academic year (Sept 02-June 03)and we wonder if anyone has experience keeping a checking account there.

I have bank accounts here in France... I recommend the Credit Agricole bank.<BR>All your daughter needs is her passport and an address - she would have an account called "non resident euro convertible" and can keep money in either dollars or euro.<BR><BR>If I can answer any other questions about opening an account, you can email me.<BR>PB<BR><BR>

We used Societe Generale, the post office also offers banking.

Hello,
I have question for PB. We are planning to move to Southern France within the next 12-18 months. My question is, can we open a French bank account here in the USA prior to our move?

Thanks for the help

Trainman

bookmarking -- I too would like to have a Euro account but do not live in Europe

gregploysa, PB's post is 8 years old. I'll be very surprised if you get a reply from PB so you might repost your own thread.

This is a post from 2002; you're better off starting a new thread.

Couldn't have said it better myself esm.

Oh wait a minute, I already did!!

:-))

Jeez I just noticed the dates. How do these things get topped after 8 years??!!

P_M, your post wasn't showing when I posted! I guess Trainman is a new poster.

Tegdale: I ask that just about every time one of these 6 or 8 or 10 yo threads gets topped - usually by a fairly new Fodorite. How on earth did they find such an old thread to top? The search function does work now, but I have to know pretty much exactly what a thread is about to locate a really old one. Curious how relative newbies manage to do it. But so far none have ever answered. Shall remain one of those mysteries I guess . . . . :)

This one is before registration so even IF PB is still around, s/he will have changed screen name(s) since then.

Great minds esm. :-)

gregploysa, I also noticed you are very new. Please click "Start a New Topic," entitle it "Banking in France" (or something similar), click France on the drop down and in the text box you can ask for the info you need. We have many good posters on this board and I bet you will get some help. Welcome to Fodorville.

FWIW, I've had bank accounts in France for 18 years. There's no mystery to it. The banks will happily take your money.

tedgale,

why would you want a euro account unless it were absolutely necessary (I pay taxes and utilities on my French property)? The checking account in France is free, but can't be used north of France--Belgium and Germany do not use checking accounts; trust me, my Berlin cousin either has me pay his very low taxes on agricultural land in France or sends the cash. I do not know if Italy and Spain would accept French euro checks. Sending money from the States costs more than going through a process of withdrawing the money from an ATM with no charge if you have a bank account that does not charge for foreign withdrawals, and then depositing that money in your French bank account if you need to replenish it; but you have to live with the limits on withdrawals from your U.S. (?) account. My understanding is that your account in France will be charged for each ATM withdrawal, but I am not sure about that. I simply do not see the advantage of a euro account.

These are useful points. My main motivation is as follows:

The Canadian dollar is reaching an historic high against the Euro (and the USD). I'd like to shelter some Canadian cash against currency fluctuations, for use in future travel.

I could establish a Euro account in Canada but I would also like to have a French bank card.

We regularly encounter minor irritants associated with NOT having a bank account and a bank card.

These range from the inability to buy gas on a Sunday afternoon at a 24/7 station (a near-crisis, on one occasion) to the impossibility of getting back our security deposit on a rental property -- it took 6 months and 6 attempts for the French property's owner to effect a transfer to our Canadian credit union.

My major objective is to shelter cash at a favourable rate, which I know I can do over here. But I also like the idea of having the bank card, for situations where credit cards are not accepted.

Note that when St Cirq says it is easy to get an account, it is - if you have an address in France, as she does, and as I do. When we bought our house, we opened an account.

But as far as I understand, you have to have an address if you want to have a bank account in France. Probably the same in Canada, but as a resident, it's not something one normally worries about.

Good point, Carlux.

Tegdale, hi fellow Canuck. Have you considered opening Euro account with HSBC? I just stocked up on GBP and Euros from TDTrust then opened accounts with HSBC. From what I understand with HSBC being an international bank,if you let them know where you will be travelling to they will open an account in that particular country for you to access with their bank card.I don't think Canadian banks are allowed to give you open access Euro accounts,only one for bank drafts.

Scotiabank and HSBC both offer Euro savings accounts. With Scotiabank that means no chequing, no telephone or internet banking -- just face to face transactions via a teller at your local branch. For picking up cash prior to a trip abroad, that would be useful. Not helpful RE other forms of transaction.

That's news about HSBC and the bank card. I will check it out.

On the HSBC website, I have read that I can open an offshore account with them -- in a tax haven (Channel Islands, Isle of Man). That would not be very useful for my purposes. But if I had bank-card access via whatever means, I could be quite interested.