Opening a french bank account

J

joolsveer

Registered User
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I have searched the forum but cannot find a thread for this.
I travel to France fairly often and have been advised by a friend in France that it would be useful to open a bank account there. He banks with Credit Agricole and says he is happy with their service.
I am intending to spend up to three months a year in France in future and I would appreciate if the members here could advise me on the best options available to me for banking and paying bills in France.
 
http://www.sepa.ie/

Eventually you will be able to make payments to other euro countries from your Irish account. I think the banks have to be sepa compliant by Feb 2012.
 
As far as I know you have to have a french address to open a french bank account.

Try posting on French Entree (formerly ) this used to be a great resource for these types of queries.
 

Why not just use your Irish account?

Most/all Irish banks allow EUR eurozone to eurozone wire transfers online. You can also you pay your bills online to your French counterparts online via your Irish account
 
HI ,
I have a French bank account with Credit Agricole, they have an english speaking branch, see www dot britline dot com (I am not allowed to post links) they charge €5.50 per month and transfers in Euro from Ireland are free.
A "connection" with France is required to open an account and the online banking is in French only, so unless you speak French, use your Irish account.
 
A French non-resident's account would be much handier for writing/lodging cheques and making cash withdrawals without incurring ATM fees (often quite high in France for non-French cards).

Some Irish banks have arrangements with French counterparts — Bank of Ireland with BNP, off the top of my head. You could start there. But banking in France is more "regional" than here — in addition to the big national banks there are strong localised presences, depending on where you are — Crédit Agricole seems to have the lion's share of the market in areas like Brittany/Normandy which have lots of British residents, and they offer English-language phone & internet banking. La Poste might be a good alternative; it's cheaper and has the advantage of Saturday morning opening.

Some more info here (geared largely to the UK) and on forums like justlanded.com.
 
Thanks everybody for you advice. I had heard that the Post Office was good for banking too but know little about it.
 
Depending on your needs, a free savings account (with online access and transfers) might be sufficient; see here. The English section of their website isn't up to much; fuller details [broken link removed] en français. If you need a chequebook, a basic current account with a VISA debit card starts at €10.30 per quarter.
 
He banks with Credit Agricole and says he is happy with their service.

Just be careful when dealing with above bank,their charges can be very high i found Credit Du Nord to be competitive enough.

Pat
 
I decided I would apply to Credit Agricole in Caen to open a Britline account. Yesterday I spoke to a man there who informed me of the various fees and charges. I am now awaiting the arrival of contracts to sign.
 
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