Foreign Perspectives

International banking raises issues that rarely arise when you confine your transactions to one country.

If you are moving to France to live, you might think that you may as well either close or at least tidy up your finances at home before you leave. Resist this temptation! It can be much more difficult to open accounts when you are living in France and if you have closed everything you may find it virtually impossible to open any account in the UK.

The banking scene in France is completely different from that in the UK. Whereas there are the “big four” in the UK, France doesn’t really have any truly big banks and the majority of French “banks” are what would be considered relatively small regional building societies in the UK. As with small building societies, the range of products is quite limited.

I’ll be going through the various financial aspects of buying a house over the next few posts.