Euro account for cruising in France

[davidej]

We are taking the boat to France for a lengthy period and thought a Euro account would be a good idea. Then instead of using a £ credit/debit card and being charged each time it is used, we could buy a few thousand Euros at a time to use to make small payments.

However it seems that no UK bank will give you an account with a debit card - only a book of cheques which will only clear in the UK. Not much use!

Has anybody got a better suggestion how to save fees.

 

[vyv_cox]

We have an account with ABN Amro in Holland. They have an English language website, issue debit cards and are happy to take foreign customers. We transfer a lump sum from UK at the beginning of the season, then use ATMs anywhere in Europe.

 

[libellule]

Depending on how long you intend to be in France, have you thought about opening a french bank account and transfering fees as and when needed.

CA Britline is a normandy branch of Credit Agricole and they speak english

 

[vjmehra]

Citi Bank Uk will give you a fee free EUR and/or USD account with a debit card, I've had one for a few years, basically for European holidays and it's ideal (although if you open a USD one too remember to let them know which currency you want your card to use before you go, otherwise you end up trying to spend EUR from your USD account)!

 

[albineer]

we use a Post Office travel money card in France which does not charge fees for purchases but does when you use an ATM. We tried getting an account with Credit Agricole but got nowhere. I'll look into vy_cox's suggestion to see if it's an improvement on Travel Money.

 

[Cloven]

Two possible options.

As already stated, Credit Agricole do have their Britline service which operates as a normal French bank account but you can speak to them in English.

Another option is the Nationwide FlexPlus account. That gives you both a credit and a debit card. Use the credit card for purchases, no fees and a great rate of exchange. Pay off each month online. The Debit card gives you no fee cash withdrawals. Only downside is that they charge £12 per month to operate the account but you do get extras for that.

FWIW, we have both a holiday house and a boat in France. We operate the above ie Nationwide Flex+ & Credit Agricole although our CA account is with CA Morbihan which has a slight disadvantage in that all correspondence has to be in French.

We also have a Caxton FX Euro account which is a prepay card which you load with Euros via the internet for a Uk account and then can be used just like any normal debit card & no additional fees. However, since getting the above accounts, we rarely use this as our cash withdrawals either from Natiowide or CA have no fees.

We load the CA account online using HiFX which gives an almost commercial rate and no fees as long as you load not less that about 4000 euros at a time (not sure what exactly the cut off is). Currently HiFX are doing a rate of about 1.22euro to the £.

 

[lustyd]

Isn't the charge on the card usually in line with currency exchange or transfer fees anyway? Sounds like a lot of effort to me for what is probably very little benefit. I may be wrong, but the ones I've looked at (certainly the Post Office one) charge a fee to get your pounds into them. Similarly if you convert cash to Euros you're paying a percentage to convert (yes, yes, I'm aware of the friendly signs saying they don't charge...) and may well have issues at the other end with money laundering rules. Certainly in the UK you can't just swan into a branch with a few thousand in cash and deposit it, no questions asked...

 

[JumbleDuck]

I have a Euro account with a German bank. It was trivially easy to open, with none of the ridiculous hoops you ave to jump through in the UK. I went in, saw the manager, filled in the forms and had my account up and running there and then. UK address? No problem at all.

 

[bendyone]

CITI Bank UK , get a Euro account with debit card. All online works well for me.

 

[RobbieW]

...HiFX which gives an almost commercial rate and no fees as long as you load not less that about 4000 euros at a time (not sure what exactly the cut off is). Currently HiFX are doing a rate of about 1.22euro to the £.

We use a FairFx card, very similar idea to the Caxton one in that it is a preload debit card. Current rate is €1.24 to the £ and can be loaded by credit transfer from a UK bank account, no minimum - credit card loading incurs a transaction fee. A Charge of €1.50 is made for each ATM transaction so we tend to take out fewer big lumps rather than many little lumps, card purchases have no fee. It works in most places, notable exceptions have been tolls on French motorways which I dont think like any debit cards.

 

[pandroid]

+1 for Citibank

 

[MJWF]

Could try halifax clarity card. It is a uk credit card but no charges on cash withdrawn in euro and no monthly fee. You pay (low for a cc) interest from day of withdrawal (no interest free period.

 

[lustyd]

Has anyone actually done the maths on the relative costs of these options? I'd love to know if the "no fee" Citibank account is actually a good overall deal compared to just paying the fee in a GBP account but don't have the patience to do the research and maths. I'll admit I couldn't even work out the exchange rate page on Citibank's website!

 

[bendyone]

Has anyone actually done the maths on the relative costs of these options? I'd love to know if the "no fee" Citibank account is actually a good overall deal compared to just paying the fee in a GBP account but don't have the patience to do the research and maths. I'll admit I couldn't even work out the exchange rate page on Citibank's website!

Citi bank is totally free if your keep €2000 in the account or it costs €5 a month to run. The main advantage is that you can buy your euros when you want and have somewhere to keep them.

 

[footsoldier]

We use a FairFx card, It works in most places, notable exceptions have been tolls on French motorways which I dont think like any debit cards.

That's odd. I use my FairFx card all the time at peages, with nary a problem.

 

[pandroid]

The Citbank exchange rate is competitive and you can choose your time.Transfers into the account from a UK bank account are instant and free. SEPA (euro) payments to European companies are free ( I pay my marina fees this way, which is the main reason I have the account). Cash withdrawals on the card are free as long as it's in Euros. I use a Nationwide credit card for shopping which has no charges.

 

[vjmehra]

Has anyone actually done the maths on the relative costs of these options? I'd love to know if the "no fee" Citibank account is actually a good overall deal compared to just paying the fee in a GBP account but don't have the patience to do the research and maths. I'll admit I couldn't even work out the exchange rate page on Citibank's website!

With the Citi account you just deposit/transfer the EUR as and when you want to and can use any fx transfer service (I use ipay fx), so it genuinely is free, your only 'cost' is the spread charged by your fx transfer company (or you can use Citi themselves I believe).

 

[stiknstring]

Another vote for the fairfx card. Very easy to replenish and up at best rates I can find. Also provide an online statement, so you can follow balances by the minute (!) if you need to.

I had an appalling experience with Thomas Cook card trying to report a fraud - unmanned phone lines and very unresponsive when we at last made contact (my father in law hard to walk into the nearest UK store to get their attention)! Fairfx very reliable - called them this morning over one of my kid's cards - answered third ring and sorted it immediately.

 

[Jim@sea]

Depending on how long you intend to be in France, have you thought about opening a french bank account and transfering fees as and when needed.

CA Britline is a normandy branch of Credit Agricole and they speak english

I lived in France for 4 years. While in the UK, and without going to France I opened a French Bank Account with Barclays in Bordeaux and received a Debit Card.
Because we ended up in Brittany I opened an account with Credit Agricole in our Village. And they are weird.
I want to close my account and they wont do it. I have sent 3 letters explaining that I have sold my French house and now live in the UK.
I did not have a Debit or Master/Credit Card so its not as if I can close the account and use the card.
They appear to be quite happy taking the Euros 2.50 a month account charge for the last 6 months.

 

[dratsea]

David,

Agree with most of comments above. I would add Moneycorp to Citibank. From memory the range of currencies was marginally wider at Citi but the min that you had to have to avoid charges was a lot higher. With Moneycorp I can pay in, or convert to and leave, monies in at least GBP/US$/Euro/AUS$/NZ$ ( I think also CDN$? but not got that far yet!). Both offered the option of taking a "fix" at today's exchange rate for a conversion at a later date. Might be useful if you know you have a big bill coming later in the year and want to budget for it. I am afraid I find guessing what way currencies will go to be a dark art and have never bothered.

Local banks may be an option (I have one in NZ that has branches through out Auz). One word warning, having worked in France, is that all the French banks used to charge for a current account, even one in credit. Free banking is a very UK sort of thing. The closest I can get in NZ is one that charges me every time I use counter service but it is free to operate on-line and with my EFTPOS card, the local debit type card which is accepted by the say 10% of places that do not take my UK credit/debit cards. For the last three years I have lived on my NW(ide) credit card and Santander credit card. I tend to put the first few transactions in each new country onto a spread sheet and by the end of a week have a pretty good idea what I get charged per dollar/Euro/XFP/$EC/$NZ etc. One is VISA and the other MasterCard but rates have been the same down to the 4th decimal place. I have a number of other UK cards and use them occasionally (so that they do not get cancelled) and all my other cards add the 2 and a bit percent on the currency conversion rate as a sort of hidden charge. I believe Co-Op advertised that they had a no hidden charge on the card and there may be others. I had previously found that I needed both VISA and MasterCard as some countries will only take the one (Ecuador=Galapagos and Sri Lanka only took MasterCard and French Polynesia only VISA) but now seems to be less a problem.

As I said I have a Moneycorp account but to be honest the cheapest money in Europe, Caribbean, Pacific and NZ is to use one of my NW/Santander for purchases and the other to take cash out. The card for purchase I clear in full at the end of the month but the card for cash I clear the balance on the day it appears to avoid the interest charges. As far as I can see this gives me my local beer vouchers at the best possible rate. And one other tip: I made the mistake of overpaying into the Santander card in order to withdraw a couple of thousand dollars in cash for the Pacific and they froze my account until I had paid to transfer the money back to account of origin. It cost nearly $100 on phone cards to get that sorted.

Have a great time,

Dratsea