Opening a french bank account

J

joolsveer

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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.
 
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.
 
joolsveer said:
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.
Click to expand...

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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