Wise.com ....

 

Like @Crawford, I recommend the Wise app. I use it to transfer funds monthly to cover my regular expenses. On another thread, below, related to the transfer French retail banking operations by HSBC to CCF, another poster indicated that he was not happy using Wise for larger transfers, so you may want to look at those posts as well.

 

Usually Wise. However you might also consider Revolut because Revolut provides a French IBAN and can serve as a temporary bank for you until you find a real bank in France. I prefer Wise because it does allow you to you a laptop whereas Revolut seems to be 100% phone app based (and I already have a French bank).

 

I have zero experience with Wise, so I'll not comment on that.

I bank in the USA with an International credit union (in my case, the World Bank, but you're not eligible for that unless you've been an employee or contractor). There are considerable advantages to banking with such a credit union - favorable exchange rates, zero transaction fees, limitless no-cost wire transfers, etc. And there are at least two that accept members from people who have not been employed by them. One is Penn Federal and the other is Andrews; both are rated highly for expat customers.

 

Hi - as I didn’t have a French bank account for several weeks after I arrived, but needed to spend a relatively large sum on a car, I found that the HSBC Global Money account worked well. I transferred (fee free, and the exchange rate is supposed to be the mid point of the current exchange rate ) the USD from my HSBC Premier checking / savings into the Global account (so now in Euros). I then got the bank details from the garage, and set up a free transfer. Takes a day or two but made buying anything, or even paying for translators etc easy. I also used this method when transferring the house money to the notaire’s ‘escrow’ account. I admit to testing the waters with a small amount before sending the full amount - but worked great.
You obviously need to have a US HSBC account - mine is Premier so check if their usual account works the same for fee-feee transfers etc. I don’t have an HSBC France (CCR?) account - but Credit Agricole also accepts transfers easily. I utilise the same method from the UK also as have HSBC Premier there too.
NB. For the house, the notaire said that he would need to have ‘provenance’ for the money to show in case he was audited - that was quite straightforward using the statements etc from HSBC. Not sure how that would work for Wise or Revolut?

 

If you give up your US address, you may have a hard time maintaining/opening a bank account in the US. One option is to join ACA (American Citizens Abroad), which will enable you to open an account with the State Department Federal Credit Union. I haven't tried wiring money out of my SD FCU account yet, but I understand it is possible. Wise, which others have mentioned, is also very helpful. I have Euro and USD Wise accounts. Wise is not exactly a bank, but you receive the same type of info - account number, wiring info, Wise's address in the relevant location - and statements showing transfers are available. You might discuss with the notaire whether this would be sufficient. The Euro account is based in Belgium, which can be a problem in some cases where a French account is required, but that's a problem for later. When we bought our house, I wired the funds from my Japanese bank account to the notaire's account.

 

Take a look at the Wise website (and also at Revolut - they're starting to advertise here on TV and their offer looks interesting). Wise has evolved over the last couple of years and is apparently established as a bank in the UK, plus they appear to now be able to handle larger transfers.

I recently had occasion to transfer a larger amount of money from the US to France, and found on the Wise site that they will transfers of $1 million or more per day for individuals with monthly caps that are considerably larger. (Wish I had that problem <g>) Have also had to prove the origin of funds from the US that I passed through Wise and was able to pull a number of statements that allowed tracking from the source to Wise and then on to my French bank. I imagine there is something similar available with Revolut but have not looked into them (yet?).

 

Thank you for all your posts! Yes, not keeping an American address makes things more complicated. I am also at HSBC so will look into this Global Money Account. I am still in the US right now and will also look into BNP Paribas. Will report here if anyone is interested.

 

@Ariege -- As far as keeping the U.S. address-- I checked my current U.S. banks and three of the four had no problem serving me, with a French address. I'd say check with your current bank -- you might be surprised, I was. If they won't deal with a foreign address, there are several that will.

I know HSBC left the U.S., a few years ago, and are also leaving France. You will probably need another option. My wife and I opened up a non-resident account with BNP-Paribas, from the States, a while back. BNP told us we could convert it to a resident account, once we're in country.

For small currency transfers, any of the above recommendations will work fine, as well as doing a bank wire. For larger transfers, you might consider utilizing a currency trading firm or an omnibus account at Interactive Brokers (where you can trade most anything.) You can transfer the money in (USD,) purchase EUR, at spot, and then transfer out to your French bank account. I know this is a little convoluted compared to the slick apps, mentioned above -- but the rates will be significantly better. The EUR/USD spread is typically half a pip at almost any currency broker.

I'd recommend whatever procedures and systems you envision, to implement them and test them before the move -- so as to ensure everything will work as planned and you can fix any problems easily. Cheers, @255

 

Hi 255, what were the names of the banks that didnt have an issue with losing your US address? Looking for my mom to be able to access her retirement when she moves to France.
Thanks

 

@Amy_d -- The three that said it was OK were BMO, NFCU & PNC. Of course policies always change -- I don't have 100% certainly that they'll still like me after I make the move.

I don't know what kind of retirement account she has, but she might think of transferring it to Interactive Brokers -- they are U.S. based, but also have offices in the UK and the EU. Cheers, @255

 

Thanks so much! It’s a state university retirement system which will not do international deposits and who gave us the only other option of a paper check sent by mail. Can’t find a bank in France who will cash a foreign currency paper check.

 

You may want to check into Wise (or one of the other currency exchange things online where you get a local bank account for handling transfers). I used to have my IRA distributions transferred each month to my Wise account - which works like a local transfer to a regular US based bank. From the Wise account, you can then either hold the money as US $ or transfer to your French bank account. And the transfer to the French bank account is treated like a "local" bank transfer because it is handled through the Wise EU based bank.

 

Just adding to what @255 said. I'm a Canadian citizen living in France. IKBR (Interactive Brokers)would service my Canadian investments however any withdrawals would be to my France account in Euro. Applicable Currency conversion and fee of course.
And of course all relevant tax receipts would be issued in the new year.

 

American financial institutions seem to view the rest of the World as a dark place where demons live. My understanding is that if you want to maintain accounts with US based financial institutions, you will need to maintain a physical US °residence° address. But obviously you do not need US accounts to have a third party wire money to your french accounts.

 

FYI if you are American, you can open an account at the State Department Federal Credit Union (sdfcu.org) but don't have to be a civil service employee. Full banking privileges - they will require you to join an orginization (they provide a long list of these) to open that account but afterwards you don't have to remain in that organization I believe. I opened my account without a US address 5 years ago when BOA cancelled my acct while I was overseas. Great service to date. They also advertise WISE for transfers as well as their own. For large amounts, the fees are not a whole lot different but for smaller ones, WISE seems cheaper.

 

We have used Wise (ex Transferwise) for over a decade but recently had to give it up. They were very moderate in their fee and quicker than the other methods we chose. But.............. A year or so back they claimed they needed to "update" their records of our I.D. and as well as seeing (again!) copies of our passports, proof of address, etc. they now wanted photos of us holding up our relevant documents. Faces and the details of the documents had to both be in focus. After over a week of trying different methods they simply would not accept any of the images. We had no option but to dump them. Other people we know and posts on various forums also had been having trouble with this new requirement. We were told it was all about new money laundering regulations. The same boring excuse handed to those of us near the bottom of the food chain while turning a blind eye to the crooks at the top shifting millions every day.