Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Places’ Category

You might think that medical treatment in France would be pretty much the same as it is elsewhere in the world once you get to the point of visiting the doctor, but it isn’t.

The margin was relatively slim (53/47) but France has, much to my surprise, chosen the president that it needs at this time.

His first hundred days are likely to be turbulent ones and I suspect that last nights riots across France are merely a taster of things to come. Many of his policies seem to run against the deep socialist grain of French thought and practices.

The 35 hour week is to be reviewed. That was one of the planks of job creation from the socialist era. Reduce the time that anyone is allowed to work and everyone will have more work, won’t they? Well, perhaps in theory if you drop the permitted working hours by 10% you might think that employers will need 10% more people to get through the work but that’s only going to work with cuts much larger than 10%. As is clear everywhere else in the world, semi-parttime workers get through just as much work as full-time workers do.

Immigration rules are to be tightened up. This one seems pretty strange coming from the son of immigrants. The counterpart to this is that he seems likely to work with the countries in northern Africa to form a kind of African Union to help improve the economies of those countries.

France is to become a little bit more capitalist too as he plans to reduce the regulations on businesses to make the job creation process much easier. Taxes too are to be reduced to improve the incentive to work.

Will he have the strength of character to follow through on these reforms is the biggest question though. I think he will: he seems to have that inner strength that is so necessary to do it.

I find the cemeteries in France really fascinating.

Naturally there are loads of military ones around the sites of past battles in the two world wars. The second world war ones up around the Normandy beaches are perhaps the most impressive in terms of the sheer scale of carnage that they represent. However, in addition to those there are many much smaller WW1 cemetries dotted around the landscape. The area of the Somme has untold numbers of these from the large Thiepval and numerous smaller versions in that area from the Ulster Tower to relatively small Australian ones.

One thing that they all have in common is that every single grave in them is still well tended for, no matter how long ago the death occured. As we were going through the Somme cemeteries last year, every one looked as though it was only filled a few weeks ago. Don’t forget that these graves are getting on for 100 years old by now too. The reason for this is simple of course: the Commonwealth War Graves Commission  really live up to the phrase “they shall not be forgotten” and are constantly caring for the graveyards and refurbishing the headstones.

Of course, they don’t just look after the major graveyards and the photo here is that of the brother of my grandfather sitting in a cemetery in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, one of a couple of dozen or so scattered around that particular graveyard.

DIY is one of the most popular activities in France if the constant flow of traffic into the DIY (bricolage) shops is anything to go by.

One reason for this is that it’s next to impossible to get anyone to do odd-jobs here so many more people are forced down the DIY route than would otherwise be the case. The range of items for sale is much larger than that in the equivalent places in the UK. Electical equipment runs right up to professional gear in the larger stores and you can buy everything required to build a house from scratch which is also a fairly popular activity. I well remember one old couple wheeling out everything that they needed to floor a room in their house from the floorboards to the tools required.

The popularity of the activity is most noticeable just prior to public holidays when it’s best to avoid these places unless you’ve a considerable amount of time to spare as the queues are just unbelieveable.

Naturally, whilst it might be a popular activity, that doesn’t mean that the work is necessarily done terribly well. Not that the workmanship of the professionals is always better of course as you can see from the not quite perfect sign from this DIY store.

So what are your options if you find yourself in need of an American bank account yet don’t actually want to visit America to open one?

There are three basic options that are known to work:

1. Form an American company and then open the account for it. This option is obviously a bit over the top if you’re only making $50 a month from your online empire although it’s probably the best way to go if you’re making a living online.

2. Try opening an account with a bank that operates both in America and your own country. The two most common options for this are HSBC and Citibank as they seem to operate in more countries than most.

3. Open a brokerage account with one of the brokers catering to non-residents.

In practice, the third option is by far the simplest for most people. Most American brokerage firms operating overseas cater exclusively for high net-worth clients (ie assets of $100,000 and more) but two offer accounts for the masses. Schwab has a minimum of $10,000, Etrade has a minimum of $1,000 although you can open it with zero cash upfront. How come the brokers can manage to give you a bank account when nobody else seems to be able to? Simply because the brokerage outfits operate as integrated international organisations whereas the banks don’t (eg Citibank USA isn’t the same as Citibank UK).

The etrade account is free for the first 12 months. After that, it costs $40 per quarter unless you meet their requirements which are either 1) $10,000 balance or 2) $1000 in automated credits per month or 3) one share trade during the period. If you don’t have the $10k and don’t have the $1k going in, then it is cheaper to buy or sell some shares than pay the $40. Our American bank account kit contains all the information you need to do this.

The second option isn’t quite so popular mainly because it isn’t as well known. The easiest way is if you have a premium account with either Citibank or HSBC in your own country as your relationship manager will be able to do it for you. These services are CitiGold and HSBC Premier but the downside is that the rough requirements for them is that you have $50,000 on deposit with them, or have an income of $75,000 or have a mortgage of $200,000 with them (roughly; the requirements vary depending on the country). It has recently become a good deal more difficult to persue this option.

Next easiest (and more economical) is to phone Citibank or HSBC in America and they’ll open an ordinary account for you on presentation of the appropriate ID and, sometimes, a bank reference. Citibank seems more geared up for this: call their International Personal Banking people on 001-813-604-3000. The latest information is that the banks are making this option almost impossible to use.

That’s just saved you between $5 and $250 which is about the going rate to buy the relevant information as above. Swiss bank accounts are slightly more difficult but definitely not worth paying the $1000 or more that I’ve seen quoted to provide you with the information. I’ll be covering Swiss banks in a later article, but if you can’t wait, pop a comment on this post and I’ll pass the information on to you (free!), likewise for other countries.

Don’t forget though that the first question you should ask yourself is: why do I need an American bank account? Google will only make payments into an American account if you live there and Citibank offers a US$ account in the UK (and other countries) which will let you deposit US$ cheques free of charge. It’s really only Paypal that requires such an account and even then that’s only if you live in one of the countries for which they don’t support withdrawals direct to your bank account.

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

An updated version of this article is on our expat banking site which also includes access to the detailed opening instructions that many people have asked for.