Need advice on opening a French bank account

we need to open a french bank account. We are very much gobsmaked with the bank charges they seem to apply. Anyone know of a bank in the South of France, that has reasonable charges and you can deal with through the english language?? Would appreciate some advise on this?

Re: need advise on opening a french bank account

I have an account with BNP Paribas. Not through any choice of mine - it was set up a while back via a french mortgage broker. But I have found them reasonably good to deal with. The major plus for me was the fact they have a branch in the IFSC in Dublin with Irish staff. They don't offer all of the services of a normal bank branch there mind, but can deal with queries over phone, help with translations and stamp various forms for you.

There is also britline.com an online crowd that operate french bank accounts. Think they're hooked up with credit agricole. Then there's always HSBC.

Re: need advise on opening a french bank account

I didnt have a good run with Banque Populaire. Would not recommend them.

Société Générale were my bête noire... and that was while I was living there! (admittedly a long time ago)

Hopefully one of our French 'correspondents' here will be able to offer a more positive recommendation!

Edit: the following websites may be of interest:

• Opening a French bank account from FrenchEntrée.com
• France - Bank Accounts (expatfocus.com)

i heard a report on french telly the other night about bank charges and how they were, in general, higher than the european average.

have never bothered to look into the detail though. we have an account with la Banque Postale (used to be La Poste) and have had no problems with them (if you discount the fact that service is slow, as is everything in s. of france!). OH is french and has had bad dealings with credit lyonnais in the past.

I've used Banque Populaire du Sud (http://www.sud.banquepopulaire.fr/Magazine/index.html) for paying local bills and taxes etc and found them to be fine. You can check your balance online and, provided you allow 3 days, funding the account from your branch is easy. My account is fairly basis, I have a chequebook, but my atm card will only work in Banque Populaire machines, and not in shops and restaurants. The charges are minor, a few Euros per quarter.

Banking in France (in fact, perhaps everything in France!) is more bureaucratic than here, but opening the account was relatively straightforward, just needed the usual anti-moneylaundering docs. Banque Populaire was actually my second choice, I went to Credit Lyonnais first, but when they heard that a) the account was only to help manage a property, and b) that I'd already bought property insurance, they refused to open an account.

I have an account with Barclays in Paris and I deal with them in English. I pay a flat €50 per quarter in charges.
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I don't contact them much so I can't really say much about them, just that I am able to deal with them in English.