If you are a tourist in France staying for three months or more, you might have to have a bank account opened temporarily during your stay.  It is imperative that you do this because in handling the finance of some utilities (for example the cellular phone) requires you to set up an automatic debit system with a French bank.  Plus it is more convenient this way.

Bank Recommendation

If you want to have a connection with a bank in your country, you might want to choose that. If not, we recommend you use Labanquetpostale, and open an account in France’s post office.  La poste’s (post office) banking arm, Labanquepostale, has the widest network simply because it is inside of their post offices, which means you can access your account in roughly all the village in the country.  The one risk you take is having to wait in line for longer than you expect.

Services of La Banque Postale

One advantage of Labanquepostale is that it has longer banking hours as compared to other banks. They are open for two and a half hours longer than most banks on weekdays, and open still on Saturdays.  One exception is the one on Louvre St (Rue du Louvre, Paris) which is open for 24 hours.  They also have an online presence which you can access through Labanquepostale.fr for your banking convenience.

Like any other bank, Labanquepostale provides bank statements, chequebooks free of charge, while cash, debit, and credit cards can be obtained for a fee.  All these are sent to your address within one to two weeks.  Another service provided that is worth mentioning is their insurance coverage, this is a worthwhile investment in case of theft given that replacing a lock in France can cost a little over €200.

Money language

French francs are no longer used having the Euro as their main currency, shops still use francs to list prices and locals still speak in francs, all the more when taking about large amounts of money like the cost of a car or even a house.  You will hear people say “k f”, this is ‘thousands of francs’ abbreviated.