Foreign Perspectives

Archive for May, 2007

It was bound to happen sooner or later of course. French drivers driving tractors on a road where 100km/hour is sometimes far too slow for the people behind.

Anyway, we were tootling along this morning at quite a low speed as we’d just left the village, slowed down even more as there was oncoming traffic, moved out to overtake the tractor in front and, of course, he decided that was the time to turn (naturally without indicating that he was planning on doing it).

So we are sans voiture at the moment and likely to be so for a while I suspect if insurance claims move along at the usual pace of French administration.

Fortunately the insurance covers us for a replacement car so we’re picking up a rental car tomorrow afternoon.

Given the level of damage (both sides nicely smashed in, roof caved in, windscreen and side window broken, some wheels punctured and broken, plus it looks like the axle ain’t straight either), I think we’re talking write-off but we’ll know better after the assessor sees the car (possibly later today).

If you are intending to buy a property in France at some point, it’s pretty much essential to open a French bank account before you get to the point of purchase. 

For non-residents, the internet banking companies are not an option. Indeed, they are, on the whole, not an option unless you have been resident in France for a year or two as they ask for proof of French income. An exception to this is Ing although that’s purely a savings account and also requires you to already have a French account.

If you bank with HSBC, the easiest option for you is to open an account with HSBC in France. Those with Premier accounts can ask their relationship manager to do this but otherwise it’s best just to pop into an HSBC branch whilst you are in France (they’re not currently set up to open non-resident accounts outside the Premier arrangement). Although with Premier accounts in two countries you get free transfers between them, HSBC France is one of the highest charging banks in France so this may not be the best option for you.

Before starting the opening process, you should have a look at the French banking practices section of our Living in France guide.

Both Barclays and LloydsTSB offer a French service. However, their branches are clustered around Paris and the Cote d’Azur and not particularly cheap.

A number of French banks offer English speaking services and, on the whole, these are much cheaper than those on offer from the British banks (the American banks in France only cater for high net-worth individuals and not suitable for most people).

Of these, the most popular is Britline which is a English speaking phone & internet banking branch of Credit Agricole based in Normandy. The service from them is excellent but the services of most other branches of Credit Agricole is between dire and truly dreadful; you can however use the Britline across France so usually don’t need to bother with the local branches. Credit Agricole is a regional bank so, unless you live in Normandy, your local Credit Agricole is a different bank from Britline which limits the facilities available in branches if you’re using Britline as your bank but in practice this merely means that you can’t use the automated deposit machines.

More generally useable is Banque Populaire which has a number of English speaking branches in various regions around France although the most targetted at the English speaking community is that in the Cote d’Azur. This is also a regional bank so you can expect some limitations to the services on offer through your local Banque Populaire. The biggest plus of this is that the service in the branches is, on the whole, much better than Credit Agricole and the charges are significantly less too.

The two national banks,  BNP Paribas and Societé Générale, also have a number of English speaking branches but they don’t promote these actively. An account opened with any of these can be used anywhere in France with the same level of services as they are not regional banks. The other plus point is that they are much larger banks and therefore offer a much wider range of services.

To open accounts in any of the above, use the contact details here and they’ll send you the necessary forms (you can’t open any non-resident accounts online in France). In terms of documentation, all that is normally required is a photocopy of your passport and an original electricity bill. If you are opening the account some time in advance of needing to use it, don’t bother getting a debit card as these cost from EUR 20 to EUR 200 per year. It’s quite easy to stick to using cheques in France as everyone takes them with proof of ID (passport or driving license). Finally, don’t be caught out by inactivity fees which are around EUR 50 per year if you don’t use the account.

If you are moving to France, do not wait until you are in France before you try opening an account here as you won’t be able to provide the proof of address required for several months. If the account is opened before you move, you can simply change the address which in turn will provide you the required proof of French address required to get a French mobile phone. Opening an account whilst you are living in France is, for the most part, a nightmare best avoided involving making appointments with your conseilleur and getting signed up for expensive and useless additional services which are next to impossible to cancel afterwards.

Before opening your account, you should read the French banking practices section of our Living in France guide.

This is part of our series on international banking which covers how to open and use accounts in various jurisdictions around the world including America, Switzerland and various offshore banking centers such as the Channel Islands, Isle of Mann and Bermuda.

It’s time for the fields to be sprayed locally with fungicide and, as usual, we’ve all coughing and have sore throats even though we’re quite a bit away from where the spraying is being done at the moment.

Naturally, the concentration of the spray is a good deal higher around those doing the spraying but, of course, they’re wearing masks, aren’t they? Well, since it is France, no, they aren’t wearing any masks or other protective gear. This photo shows that there’s a mild breeze blowing which is great when the guy is driving the direction in this photo. I have a photo of him driving in the other direction but you can’t see the tractor in it as it’s totally enshrouded in the cloud from the spray.

Incidently,  in case you were wonder, yes, the packaging that the spray comes in is marked with untold numbers of warnings about the necessity of wearing protective gear when using it. Not that you really need to be told that working in a cloud of fungicide is not a good idea.

This total disregard for health & safety is typical for the area. Granted, the guy doing the spraying is making his own decision to ignore the warnings as it’s his field but even in the supermarkets you constantly come across wet and slippy floors that are ignored by the staff. In the UK, they have 2 minutes to clear any spillage or they’re legally liable, here it seems like hours are fine (and, yes, we have been in a supermarket a few hours where a spillage we saw on the way in was still there as we went out).

Now that Barclays are scapping the excellent Woolwich Cardsaver account, are there any alternatives that give a similar level of usefulness from a savings account?

Sadly, none offer the combination of reasonable interest with international debit card access but there are a number of accounts around at the moment which offer most of the attributes of this sadly missed account.

If you don’t fail the credit check, the Egg Money card is excellent. This gives you a Mastercard debit card with no cash withdrawal charges at home and abroad (foreign exchange of 2.75% applies), good interest when in credit, an excellent rate if you’re overdrawn with it and internet access. Where it falls down is that it isn’t a true bank account so you need to quote the reference number on your card when making payments and you don’t seem to be able to get cheques written from the account if you needed to withdraw more than the £500 daily limit (although you could buy things with it). Also, since it is a credit card (albeit intended for savings), they run a credit check on you which may not suit everyone and there would normally be a charge for paying cash into the account as they don’t have any branches. Interest is about 0.75% more than Cardsaver and you even get a cash rebate on things bought using the card.

Similar to this is Cahoot which is a full bank account which offers an even greater range of facilities than the Egg Money account. Downside on this one is that there is a 1.5% withdrawal charge when used overseas (plus exchange rate charge). There’s a credit check on this one too and again no branches although you can pay money in via Post Office branches. Interest is about 0.5% more than Cardsaver.

Intelligent Finance is a more complex version of Cahoot but without the access to Post Office branches. Interest is about the same as Cardsaver if you go for their cheque account, about 2% more if you go for their savings account. Deposits are only by cheque in the post or electronically from another account.

The Easy Access Savings Account from Ulster Bank and First Reserve from Natwest offer pretty much all the facilities of Cardsaver (it’s a Solo debit card instead of Visa Electron) but with a much lower interest rate. However, as the equivalent account issued by Royal Bank of Scotland (who own Ulster Bank and Natwest) only has a cash card (Cirrus, so useable internationally) I wouldn’t depend on the debit card facility remaining. As it’s a savings account, there’s no credit check. Interest is about 1 to 1.5% below the Cardsaver rates.

Beyond the above, you’re limited to cash card based accounts, and for internationally useable ones there seems to be only one option: the Instant Access/Instant Savings Tracker accounts from Royal Bank of Scotland (Cirrus system, interest about 0.25% less than Cardsaver depending on your balance).

The best account for you depends on your needs. Cahoot is best overall in giving good interest and access to Post Office branches for deposits and withdrawals plus it’s a full current account. If you want to avoid the credit check the accounts from Ulster Bank and Natwest are the only ones with debit card access although if you want international access and can do without the debit facility, the Royal Bank’s Instant Savings Tracker account pays more.

If you drop the requirement for international access, your best bet is probably Smile‘s savings account at 4.5% (if you have their current account too) or indeed their current account on its own at around 3% (ie Cardsaver level) which is accessible through their branches and the Post Office too.

French banking practices are very different from those in the UK in several key areas and it’s those differences that we’ll concentrate on here.

Conseilleurs

In the UK, a bank advisor is there to do things like advise you what to invest your money in and to sell you insurance but in France Conseilleurs don’t do anything as complex as that and are required to do really simple stuff like changing a direct debit or opening a savings account. This wouldn’t be so bad but you always need to make an appointment to see “your” advisor because, for reasons which escape me, the others that may be there on the day you go in can’t do that kind of simple task for you. Of course, this approach means that each advisor is clogged up with work at the trivial end of the scale. If you want to open a savings account in the UK, you fill in a form, hand in ID and cash and the cashier opens it there and then. Here it can take several weeks to open even the simplest account. So, ’tis best to develop a relationship with your advisor here as you’ll be making untold numbers of appointments to see them.In the UK, a bank advisor is there to do things like advise you what to invest your money in and to sell you insurance but in France Conseilleurs don’t do anything as complex as that and are required to do really simple stuff like changing a direct debit or opening a savings account. This wouldn’t be so bad but you always need to make an appointment to see “your” advisor because, for reasons which escape me, the others that may be there on the day you go in can’t do that kind of simple task for you. Of course, this approach means that each advisor is clogged up with work at the trivial end of the scale. If you want to open a savings account in the UK, you fill in a form, hand in ID and cash and the cashier opens it there and then. Here it can take several weeks to open even the simplest account. So, ’tis best to develop a relationship with your advisor here as you’ll be making untold numbers of appointments to see them.

Overdrafts in the UK are “permanent” in that there is no problem in running an account that is constantly in the red. In France, you can only be overdrawn for 10 days per month and for the rest of the month the account must be in credit. That said, you can get a permanent overdraft facility from some of the proper banks. They all seem to implement this by giving you a credit card which is linked to your current account; when you are overdrawn outside the 10 day limit an automatic cash advance from this card takes you back into credit. French banks don’t charge cash advance fees so in practical terms this gives you something that works very like a UK overdraft.

Debit cards come in two basic varieties: immediate debit or deferred debit. Immediate debit operates just like a UK debit card ie purchases are charged to your account right away. With deferred debit, your purchases are charged to your account at the end of the month. In both cases there is a spending limit of around EUR 3000 per month and a withdrawal limit of EUR 300 per week.

Credit cards are quite rare in France at the moment but operate much the same as in the UK with the exceptions that there is no cash advance fee and they charge per transaction for all international purchases. Interest rates are generally higher than in the UK too. The other difference is that the amount you repay per month isn’t a set percentage but goes in bands eg EUR 15 or EUR 30 per month.

Store cards are available but usually require proof of your French income so can’t be obtained until a year or two after you get here. The one exception that we’ve found is Auchan which offers you it’s store card about a year after you sign up for it’s loyalty card and doesn’t require anything beyond a passport.