Suggestions for US bank in Paris
 

Going to be based in Paris for a few months for a job with working with musicians at their concerts. I will be traveling around Euorpe for shows but Paris will be my base. For payments most of my fee is wired but I also receive some money in cash. I don't like to carry much cash and was wondering how I can deposit the cash in a bank account there. I use my ATM to cover my minimal expenses and setting up an account at a French bank might be difficult since I am only a tourist. Any suggestions, my US bank Chase doesn't have a branch in Paris and it doesn't seem like Citi or BA do either. None of this is undeclared money, it's all documented and taxed. But how and where to keep the cash until I return home is the question. Thank you for your help.

Not sure how much money you're talking about, but could you use the cash to live on while there?

If you are a tourist have you got a visa to work and earn money in Europe?

As jamikins says as a tourist you cannot work in Europe. You also have only 90 days in Schengen.

You cannot open a bank account in Europe as a non resident.

Assuming you are getting an appropriate visa then use the cash payments for your living expenses. Any cash left over should be kept in a safe at your Paris base, and converted in one go for your return home.

As noted, non-residences of France and other EU countries, cannot open a bank account. But you can in Switzerland with the proper documentation (passport). You can even open it before leaving home, depending on the bank.

I take it you will be working as a consultant and not as a musician or sound engineer, otherwise you could quickly run afoul of the law. Also, 90 days is the limit for a tourist visa. And that's 90 days every 6 months.

I had no problem opening a bank account in France, but that was 20 years ago. Perhaps the rules have changed?

How about American Express ? Believe they now have a bank.

I opened a bank account in France from the United States last May. I did not yet have a residence there. But, it was not easy as several banks had stringent documentation requirements. When I got in touch with Barclays, which has several branches in Paris, I got an instantaneous response and had a check book and Visa within two weeks.

Bof A has a connection with BPA Parabis.

BPA Parabis = BNP Paribas, which has acquired Bank of the West.

My mistake! It seems it is possible for a non-resident to open an account in France.

"To open an account you should make a visit to the local branch office of the bank of your choice and complete an application form called a mandat.

If you are non-resident, you MAY also need to produce your last two bank statements and a banker's reference.

When you open an account you will need to sign a contract called a convention de compte, which sets out the rules governing the operation of the account and the products and services."

HSBC has positioned itself as the best bank for people who need to operate in more than one country.

If your employers are based in the US, why not have pay directly deposited in you account at home and then available by ATM?
I assume there are European ATMs which will accept your cash deposit and transfer it to your own bank. I've never tried it -- all my money is going one way, out, when I'm travelling -- but if the banks can transfer money to you on the road, won't it go the same way in reverse?
As Kerouac says, HSBC boasts about its abilities in this regard.

Thank you everyone for your suggestions. Work permits arranged by the company I work for. Barclays, AMEX, and B of A sound like good options. I will expolore them. Thank you

No personal experience but HSBC has been the answer for a number of friends, allowing them to maintain accounts in more than one currency. Canadians expats have had good luck with Bank of Montreal even though they are Anglophones from the Prairies. :-) We had a sterling account in the UK for a long time, but having to file US tax forms was a pain. After we retired and were no longer there on business, we closed it.

My experience with trying to open an HSBC account in France from the United States was very poor. They wanted all documents submitted to certified by an HSBC bank officer. The nearest of those was 1200 miles away in New York. They also had a limited number of branches in France, and the nearest to where we looking for a home was 200 kilometers away in Toulouse.

But, after I had eliminated HSBC from my search, I was in New York on business and walked into a branch there. Because they were not busy at the time, I asked one of the bank officers if they had ever heard of certifying paper work for opening an account in France. Not only had he no idea of what I was talking about, he insisted on checking with everyone else in authority in the bank. All were equally dumbfounded by the question.

My SO has recently had a horrible time trying to get money out of an old HSBC account he had in Hong Kong. I think he's made at least 6 trips to the HSBC branch near us here in the USA, and every time they need something different (including some complicated form to verify his signature), and they all tell us they have no means of directly doing any transactions with the HSBC account in Hong Kong. Emails and phone calls to Hong Kong were met with flat-out refusals to release the funds (which were all documented in recent statements from that very bank). After three months, we were finally told that the manager of the HSBC branch here would contact Hong Kong and get a check issued. We asked for it in HK currency; it came in US dollars. It came in after a month or so, and the "processing fee" was more than 10% of the amount in the account. Huge pain in the.....

You don't open the HSBC account in Paris ... you open it in the U.S. (allow at least 3 weeks for all the process, though). THe money is sent electronically to the US bank account but would be available everywhere in France. ACH (automated electronic deposits) work just as well now between France and the U.S. as they do within the U.S.

Granted, you're going to lose a bit on each withdrawal for the foreign-exchange fee unless the account has enough in it to have that fee waived. But this seems like the easiest solution to me.

I also laugh when hear HSBC's inflated boasts of being "The World's Local Bank". I had an account with them in the UK for many years. When I started to travel internationally quite extensively, I soon ran into problems. On three separate occasions (in France, New England and South Africa), my account was frozen and I was unable to get any cash until I returned to the UK. My "crime"? Oh, just daring to withdraw money from a foreign ATM, even though I'd informed HSBC in advance that I would be travelling overseas. This then forced me to make expensive international phone calls to HSBC, who gave me a very customer-unfriendly interogation over the phone, and invented several ludicrous "cock and bull" stories of how the ATMs I'd been using (at reputable foreign banks) were compromised by criminal gangs, or that my debit card may have been cloned in a shop even though it was only used for ATM withdrawals...

In the end it all got too much, and I moved my accounts to a competitor bank who (touch wood) have never given me any problem with accessing my money around the world.

Glad I don't have to worry about this stuff, but I'm not clear on Doug's solution. I understand opening it in the US, but is he saying you can make deposits in cash in a French branch then? Because if the deposits have to be electronic, there isn't any point to them, the whole reason for this quest was because the OP wanted to deposit cash.