Credit Agricole/Britline Paying 4.50% for 1 Year Term Less Fees

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Duke of Marmalade

Registered User
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Disclaimer. Everything I say here should be checked if you are thinking of opening one of these.
The blurb is reproduced below.
I am told it is a "deposit" and so Irish taxation would be DIRT.
You can cancel at 31 days notice but you only get half the interest as a penalty.
It is covered up to 100k by some French deposit guarantee scheme.
Credit Agricole is a household name in France.
You would need to open a current account with Britline and yes you do get talking to Brits, so don't worry about the language.
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I've gone through Britline, and picked up a few points:

Two account offerings, Premium and Standard
Account handling €1 per month
Insurance €2 per month
Visa/Mastercard Debit/Credit Card €43.35 pa, unsure if this is mandatory, cheaper "other" card option available
DD and SEPA transfers FOC
Cash withdrawls (ATM) €1ea from the fifth withdrawal per month
Joint Accounts Possible
Appears to be a single full function current accept, with interest paid on balance
No withholding tax

Initial deposit €3,000

Mixed reviews on Trustpilot, negatives appeared to be Brits involved in French property transactions/disposals for the most part.

I've completed a current account application and uploaded the ID and AML documents. Next step is a call from them in "2 days" once my docs have been checked.

Will ask questions then when I hear from them. On my list of questions are:

Security, e.g. TFA ?
DGS details ?
Is a plastic card options or mandatory ?
Charges typically applying when account is used for deposit and EFT withdrawals only ?

If anybody else wants to read through the online info first and has any questions post them here and I'll add them to my list.
 
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Freelance said:
I've gone through Britline, and picked up a few points:

Two account offerings, Premium and Standard
Account handling €1 per month
Insurance €2 per month
Visa/Mastercard Debit/Credit Card €43.35 pa, unsure if this is mandatory, cheaper "other" card option available
DD and SEPA transfers FOC
Cash withdrawls (ATM) €1ea from the fifth withdrawal per month
Joint Accounts Possible
Appears to be a single full function current accept, with interest paid on balance
No withholding tax

Initial deposit €3,000

Mixed reviews on Trustpilot, negatives appeared to be Brits involved in French property transactions/disposals for the most part.

I've completed a current account application and uploaded the ID and AML documents. Next step is a call from them in "2 days" once my docs have been checked.

Will ask questions then when I hear from them. On my list of questions are:

Security, e.g. TFA ?
DGS details ?
Is a plastic card options or mandatory ?
Charges typically applying when account is used for deposit and EFT withdrawals only ?

If anybody else wants to read through the online info first and has any questions post them here and I'll add them to my list.
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I am retired and have a property in France and have had a Britline account for many, many years. I do need their current account facilities so their deposit options are a bonus.
 
I looked into Britline a while ago. I decided not to add it to the best buys given the fees but this new term deposit offers has me reconsidering.

As indicated above (but the fees are higher than the fees mentioned above), you are forced to open a fee-paying current account in order to open a savings account.

The two current account packages are: (You are not allowed sign up to a different Credit Agricole current account package)
- "Premium" which costs €183.60/year plus other usage fees.
- "Essentiel" which costs €109.80/year plus other usage fees.

- Some deposit accounts are for residents only.
- Livret A has additional (non deductable in Ireland) taxes for non-residents.

Given the high fees, the 4.50% account is really only worth it if you have a large deposit.
 
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Thanks @Lightning

I found the lengthy charges document to be less than 100% helpful. It's not clear to me whether or not one of the packages is mandatory. As I would only ever use the account as a means of interacting woith one of the "DAT Quatros" I'm not sure I need the insurance and the last thing I need is another piece of plastic, these being a substantial part go the package cost. I'll try to tease this out when I speck with them.

In any event €110 pa would not be a show stopper for gaining access to the rates, assuming that the DGS stacks up.
 
Britline lack transparency on their fees - some of their webpages are very unclear.

Picking one of the 2 current account packages mentioned above is mandatory.

DGS does stack up with this.

BTW, the fees you have listed above are their old fees.
 
Lightning said:
I looked into Britline a while ago. I decided not to add it to the best buys given the fees but this new term deposit offers has me reconsidering.

As indicated above (but the fees are higher than the fees mentioned above), you are forced to open a fee-paying current account in order to open a savings account.

The two current account packages are: (You are not allowed sign up to a different Credit Agricole current account package)
- "Premium" which costs €183.60/year plus other usage fees.
- "Essentiel" which costs €109.80/year plus other usage fees.

- Some deposit accounts are for residents only.
- Livret A has additional (non deductable in Ireland) taxes for non-residents.

Given the high fees, the 4.50% account is really only worth it if you have a large deposit.
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Those fees shocked me. I checked my account and I did indeed pay €76 in fees over the last year of which €64 were for a card that I never used. I never tried cancelling my card. Anyway I need the French current account.
 
Freelance said:
If that proves to be the case it would be a showstopper for me.


That’s odd. I took them from the scale of charges document on their website. Will review when I talk with them.
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Why would it be a showstopper if the DGS is in place? 100k per person is protected.

The Britline website displays the current account fees for all Credit Agricole current account products despite the fact that you can only sign up for 2 of the products via Britline. The fees on the Essential and Premium packages are the only ones that matter for new customers.
 
Duke of Marmalade said:
Those fees shocked me. I checked my account and I did indeed pay €76 in fees over the last year of which €64 were for a card that I never used. I never tried cancelling my card. Anyway I need the French current account.
Click to expand...

You might be on a legacy package that is no longer available to be customers. The fees you are paying are bad but they are worse for new customers.
 
BOI charge 72e a year so around 110e is not that far out of line with that.

Despite the name "britline" it seems it's a regular bank - just a branch of Credit Agricole (rather than britline being a middleman like raisin), that's an advantage over the Raisin banks - you've just a single SEPA transaction to worry about. Also for anyone able prepared to go above the DGS the maximum limit is 250,000.

This to me looks like it's now the best 1 year fixed deal available if you've over about 30k(?) as the 0.5% extra you'd earn here over BFF's 4% should cover the fees.
 
ashambles said:
Despite the name "britline" it seems it's a regular bank - just a branch of Credit Agricole (rather than britline being a middleman like raisin), that's an advantage over the Raisin banks - you've just a single SEPA transaction to worry about. Also for anyone able prepared to go above the DGS the maximum limit is 250,000.
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Yes, it's a branch based in Caen, Normandy.
 
Sent Britline an email with a number of queries last night. Had a competent response containing actual answers this morning. Early days yet but that puts them ahead of a lot of the other outfits that appear on this forum, the Irish banks included.
 
Freelance said:
Sent Britline an email with a number of queries last night. Had a competent response containing actual answers this morning. Early days yet but that puts them ahead of a lot of the other outfits that appear on this forum, the Irish banks included.
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I talked to my contact in Britline and she said that I can cancel my credit cards and that my fees will then only be €1 per month. Another saving down to AAM!
 
Holding 100k here would give 4.5k gross, so with any other non Irish banks e.g. Advanzia/Bunq, you'll be into this "over 5k in interest revenue report form" thing, is this right?
 
Correct, but remember the €5,000 threshold applies to ALL deposit interest, irrespective of whether it is foreign or Irish, and also includes any other taxable non-PAYE income. So if you had €4,500 gross from Advanzia/Bunq/Britline and say €1,000 gross from AIB/BOI/PTSB you will have exceeded the €5,000 threshold for Form 11 reporting.
 
Ohhhh! I thought it was only interest on which tax was payABLE counted for the 5k, not interest on which DIRT was deducted!
 
Wow! Very interesting that you can reduce fees to €1 per month by cancelling cards. I'll add that to the best buys.

One way to avoid the 5k threshold if you are at the margins is to mix deposits with Money Market ETFs, even with 41% tax it might be worth it to avoid exceeding the threshold.
 
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