Banking Accounts in France

Hi suebeehb,
I'm not clear on where he is in the process, but the usual steps for getting a bank account are:
- go in to your local branch, get an appointment, find out what they need from you
- take your dossier to the appointment and apply; if they deny you, they must supply a letter stating that (you may have to insist on it tho). If they accept, you find out usually in a week or two.
If you have the denial letter, you take/send that to the French central bank (I don't know the exact name) - they will help get you an account somewhere. I don't know details, but that is part of their charter.

If your son is an American citizen, it will be harder to find a bank that will take him, but they are out there - it just takes more effort.

There is a new law that makes switching banks easier, but I'm not sure it helps if the original banks closes down :-\

Good luck,
Julie

Thanks for this information. I appreciate it so much. I will pass it on to my son.

If he is a British or Irish citizen try Britline which is an arm of Credit Agricole. Banking is done online/telephone and in English

ING will open an acct for him, that is banking online. I am Australian and only here for a year, not working and retired, don’t pay any sort of tax, it was, let me see, I can’t explain really, beyond comprehension. I had to supply divorce papers that were over 30 years ago. Tax records that I didn’t have because I hadn’t worked for years and yes it went on. Laughable really, I hate to think what it would be like to get a loan, I only wanted to put 25,000 euro into their bank. It took over 3 months.
Sue (Port Vendres)

Wow... okay, at least we are not alone in this delayed process.  It is frustrating for him.  Thanks for your reply!