Online banking made easy - French style

Notice anything...er...ever-so-slightly out of place in the title?

Hint...the idea of a service being both "uncomplicated" and "French" at the same time - two attributes which, sadly, so often reveal themselves to be contradictory.

Of course, that's a gross generalisation.

Or it would be if it weren't for the fact that service in France - no matter in which particular domain - is not quite up to the standards of what might be expected.

The corporate cliché about the direction of a business being determined by the demands of its clientele (summed up in the maxim that the "customer is king") invariably becomes confused if not downright lost when put to the test in France.

And it's as true for online banking as it is for any other sector.

Of course it shouldn't be. The very concept of conducting financial transactions online is...well, very 21st century.

And therein lies the problem perhaps.

It's not that France doesn't have online banking.

Most of the country's main high street banks offer the service and some have even developed their own purely online affiliates: Banque Populaire has BRED,  CIC - Filbanque, Societé Générale - Boursorama and BNP Paribas - Hello bank

It's just...well, for those with regular accounts, the use of the online facilities can be...difficult.

I needed to make a transfer at the weekend.

International you'll understand, even if it meant Euro to Euro.

France to Italy (so you knew trouble would be a-brewin')

The princely sum of €150

First step was to log on to my BNP account and go through the whole  rigmarole of adding a new contact to my list of recipients.

It didn't matter that the payment would be a one-time affair (or that the amount was paltry).

The "rules" stipulate that every time you make an international transfer to a new beneficiary, the same process has to be followed.

First up, fill in the amount.

Next step - complete the recipient's IBAN (or International Bank Account Number) then the BIC (Bank Identifier Code).

Everything seemed in order - a quick double-check.

Yep.

Painless so far.

The final stage was to receive a text-message confirmation on my mobile 'phone so that the transfer could be made.

Except...the number the bank had on its file was that of my previous 'phone.

I had informed them in June last year that my number had changed. And there in the "emails sent" box was a copy of what I had written.

Time for a snotty email to the person responsible for customer relations (yes, they still have real people to answer queries at BNP - just not outside of regular working hours).

So transfer aborted and over to my account at Crédit Agricole to see whether I would fare any better there.

By now, you can probably guess where this is going.

Crédit Agricole puts customers through pretty much the same palaver to make an international transfer...amount, IBAN, BIC, reason (not obligatory) and that final page telling me that it would take three days - THREE WHOLE DAYS - for the both the new recipient and the transfer to be approved.

Result?

Well, no result.

Over 30 minutes online to use a service which the banks promise is "simple, smart, and secure"  and I had got absolutely nowhere.

Update. Heard back from my personal banker at BNP later in the week to be told that I could have changed my mobile telephone number myself online.

I simply had to log on to the page which contained my personal details (lost on a website that seems to believe user-friendliness equates with presenting the maximum information in the most complicated format imaginable) and change the number.

I would then receive - by post - confirmation that I had changed the number to which text message confirmations should be sent.

So simple.

Welcome to online banking - French style.

BNP Paribas - a bank without money

So, this is the (true) story of a man (just for argument's sake let's call him Jean-Pierre) who tried to make a withdrawal from his bank but couldn't because, in the words of the clerk, "We don't actually have any money here."

The (in)action took place at one of the Courbevoie branches of BNP Paribas.

BNP Paribas (screenshot from commercial)

"The bank for a changing world" as it proudly boasts on its website, is "a European leader in global banking and financial services and one of the best rated banks in the world."

With over 2,000 branches in France it is the country's largest.

Courbevoie, in the northwestern suburbs of Paris and one of "the best places to live" (apparently) in the Île-de-France region which comprises the capital and the surrounding metropolitan area, isn't actually Jean-Pierre's home.

It's where he spends his weekdays as he works in Paris, returning to his home in the southwest of France for the weekends.

And it's in the southwest that, just over a year ago, he opened an account with BNP because, well to be quite frank, it offered the best terms.

He needed a loan for renovation work and the local branch manager was only too willing to offer him one at a good rate and without requiring him to move his main account from a competitor bank, Crédit agricole.

Jean-Pierre's salary continued to be paid on to his Crédit agricole account in Courbevoie for which he had an ATM card but he made sure he had more than enough on both his current and savings account at the BNP to cover any emergencies that might crop up.

It was, in a sense, an account purely meant to meet expenses to his main home: although he had a cheque book, he didn't have an ATM card.

"You don't really need one if you're not going to make withdrawals," the manager had told him when he had opened it.

"And besides if you do need money at any time, you can just drop into any of our branches throughout the country and get some."

Excellent, thought Jean-Pierre at the time. "It's not an account I'm going to be using that much. My main one is with Crédit agricole and I don't have to meet the costs of having a card I'm not going to need."

Oh yes he was - and still is - a frugal man.

Except, as you've already grasped, that's not exactly how it all worked out.

Because when Jean-Pierre went along to a Courbevoie branch of BNP this week to take out some money he needed to make a cash payment (with receipt - it has to be added) he was informed politely that, "Sorry we cannot give you anything. We don't actually have any money here."

A bank without money? Now that was something novel.

Well maybe not in these cash-strapped times.

There then followed one of those almost surreal conversations during which the clerk said that if Jean-Pierre had been a client of that particular branch then he could have requested an ATM card allowing him to make an on-the-spot withdrawal.

That would have taken time, money and paperwork, and anyway wasn't really a solution to his immediate needs.

"What about the other branches in Courbevoie?" Jean-Pierre asked, knowing there were at least two more close by.

"Do they have any...er...money?"

He tried hard not to snort with incredulity at the preposterous nature of his question.

"No, they don't," was the response."

"Your best bet, if you need some cash immediately, is to try to find a BNP branch in Paris that has some. I'm sure there is one. I just don't know where it is."

Now that's the kind of sound financial advice anyone wants to hear from their bank.

So dumbfounded, Jean-Pierre left and headed straight to the nearest branch of Credit Agricole - where - what do you know - they actually did have cash on the premises.

The end.

Banking bonuses are back in France

Forget the financial crisis of last autumn and the promises made by bankers that lessons had been learnt and things would be different in the future.

The French bank BNP Paribas, one of this country's biggest, has announced second-quarter net profits of over €1.6 billion or 6.6 per cent and along with it of course come bonuses for its traders for a job well done.

And not just a couple of centimes scattered here and there, but a full €1 billion more than in 2008 according to the national daily, Libération.

It's a figure, although not denied by the bank, that isn't far off the mark as it admits in a written statement released in response to the article.

"Libération's calculations are close to the amount," it read. "But in any case at the moment they're only virtual bonuses because they won't actually be paid out until the end of the year depending on the results."

Oh well, that's all right then. They're just "virtual bonuses" and traders won't be taking home wallets stuffed to overflowing - well not quite yet.

But wait. There's more. As well as confirming the news, the bank actually justifies it too,

And it comes from none other than the BNP Paribas CEO himself, Baudouin Prot.

In an interview with the daily financial newspaper, La Tribune, Prot clearly doesn't see a problem admitting that the bank has plans to pay out bigger-than-expected bonuses.

"As far as paying bonuses to traders is concerned we have been one of the first banks in the world to respect scrupulously the recommendation of the G20," he said.

"For example, we intend to spread bonuses over several years and make them dependent on results and not revenue," he added

"Those are the principles we're going to apply for 2009."

Reassuring words indeed from a man who also insists that the "crisis has changed us".

Ah yes, as it proudly promotes itself on its official website, BNP Paribas really is La banque d'un monde qui change" or "The bank for a changing world".