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.

Rachida Brakni's banking dilemma

Do you think the French actress Rachida Brakni had any problems with the recent remarks made by her husband Eric Cantona?

Rachida Brakni (screenshot from LCL commercial)

You remember surely.

Cantona is the former French international footballer who called on people to withdraw all their money from their bank accounts.

The suggestion from the newly-discovered "political philosopher" (as one BBC report dubbed him) came during an informal interview with journalists in October.

His idea was that rather than taking to the streets to demonstrate, people could go to the local branch of their bank and withdraw all their money, "Causing the banking system to crumble".

A peaceful protest of sorts to send a message to the whole banking system and financial services which, as far as Cantona was concerned, were at the root of much of the current misery in the world; homelessness, poverty, injustice.



It was a message that quickly found its way on to the Net with a campaign beginning, a date fixed for the "revolution" and financial experts and politicians wading in to urge caution.

The day of protest (December 7) came and went.

The world survived.

But wait.

What about that initial question as to whether Brakni had a problem with her husband's remarks.

After all she must know the guy pretty well. They've been married for the past three years and the couple have a one-year-old son, Emir.

The question has to be asked though because...well what was that commercial the 33-year-old actress appeared in for a couple of weeks back in April this year?

Oh yes. That's right.

It was for one of France's biggest banks LCL (Le Crédit Lyonnais) encouraging people to apply for mortgages - of all things.

Rachida Brakni dazns une publicité LCL Vidéo jeanmarcmorandini sélectionnée dans Pub

Ho hum.

Dinner time in the Cantona-Brakni household must have made for interesting conversation.

French bank blows whistle on illegal immigrant

Last weekend Yaro S. as he's being referred to in the French media, turned up at a branch of the bank Société Générale in the Parisian suburb of Boulogne to withdraw money from his account.

As is always the case for anyone wanting to make withdrawals, the cashier asked him to present some form of identity, and Yaro handed over his carte de séjour or residence permit.

The only problem was that it was a fake one. And on realising that, the clerk informed the police and went a step further by closing the doors of the bank and ensuring that Yaro was unable to make a getaway until they had arrived.

The 41-year-old Mauritanian was taken into detention and now faces deportation back to his country of origin.

The fake ID according to La Cimade, a French non-governmental organisation that offers legal assistance to undocumented immigrants, was exactly the same piece of identity Yaro had given when opening the account in the first place back in 2005.

Moreover Yaro, who has been living in France since 2002 and has been working in the kitchen of a restaurant, has a request pending with French authorities to regularise his status as a resident.

Now to some reading this, the actions of the bank staff might smack of "denunciation" and indeed unions have criticised any behaviour by bank employees, which might to many seem overzealous and give the appearance of them wishing "to participate actively in the political process of checking identity papers."

That is not the role of staff, but as a union official, Michel Marchet, points out, there is something of a dilemma.

"When they (the employees) realise a fake ID is being presented, they are required to report it," he says.

"It's not necessarily taking part in tracking down illegal immigrants, but an obligation to ensure that there is no fraud or money laundering occurring, something for which fake identities are often used," he adds.

Société Générale's position on what happened runs along the line of "it being the responsibility of the bank to ensure that the person withdrawing money is also the one to whom the account belongs".

But it neatly sidesteps the issue that the only way Yaro was able to open the account in the first place back in 2005 was by using the very same ID that became his undoing last weekend.

For La Cimade though, what has happened to Yaro is part of a disturbing trend here in France.

"This case is symptomatic of a growing tendency to 'inform' (on illegal immigrants)," it says, pointing out that over the summer three other cases of illegal immigrant being denounced have succeeded.

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".

A banking giant is born

Monday sees the creation of what will be France's second biggest retail bank with the official merger of Banque Populaire and the Groupe Caisse d'Epargne to become BPCE.

Far from being a marriage "made in heaven" though, it is one born out of necessity and despite its size, the process of finally "becoming one" has not been without its difficulties.

Although the green light will be given for the new bank to operate throughout most of the country, there's a slight problem in Ile de France, the area surrounding and including the French capital.

The Paris court of appeal has blocked the merger for the moment because of what it insists a "failure to inform its personnel sufficiently on the merger plan between the two banking groups."

A decision as to when the Ile de France branches can be merged into the new BPCE will have to wait until the court's final ruling later this month.

In the meantime though the creation of BPCE is official throughout the rest of the country in a move which creates the second-biggest retail bank in France behind Credit Agricole.

When the credit crunch hit the world last year, Banque Populaire and Caisse d'Epargne seemed the best match in terms of the desire by French authorities to limit the effects here of the financial turmoil and consolidate the country's banking sector.

Both were major shareholders in the investment bank Natixis which was hard hit by the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the United States. Between them, the two held 70 per cent of Natixis' shares.

But the merger process has been far from an easy one.

In October last year, just as talks were underway between the two groups, Caisse d'Epargne had to come clean and reveal that it had lost around €600 million in unauthorised derivatives trading.

The chief executive at the time, Charles Milhaud, resigned taking full responsibility, but it was a loss which brought a sharp rebuke from the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who described it as "unacceptable" and an investigation was launched into how it had happened.

And at the end of February there was further controversy when François Pérol was nominated to become head of the two banks once merged.

He was a former top financial advisor to Sarkozy, and critics contested that his appointment represented a conflict of interests.

When fully operational the new group will reportedly have around 34 million customers at over 8,000 branches and employ around 110,000 people.

Sarkozy addresses the nation

Anyone sat in front of the small screen during prime time viewing here in France this evening will be hard-pushed for choice as the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, will be appearing live simultaneously on three national channels in a "special" (maximum) 90-minute programme.

He'll be facing questions from four selected journalists from the two major national channels, TF1 and France 2, along with one from M6 and another from the radio station, RTL.

It's being billed as Sarkozy's response to the economic crisis France (and much of the rest of the world) is going through, the credit crunch, the recession, call it what you will.

"Face à la crise" (surely no translation is necessary) is also likely to be a direct reaction to last week's general nationwide strike, although his office insists that there is no immediate connection between the two.

Instead it's being touted as a chance for Sarkozy to "explain" and put into perspective the government's handling of the economy during the credit crunch in France over the past couple of months and to "reassure" the French that the correct measures have been taken.

That "reassurance" is perhaps something many of those who took to the streets last week will be seeking, especially in light of the €360 billion fund (or stimulus package) the government has given to guarantee banks at a time when many small and medium sized businesses are still having problems securing loans.

Then of course there's the problem of purchasing power - or rather how to increase it, which was after all a campaign pledge when Sarkozy was running for office and an oft-repeated goal since he came to power.

Job losses, cuts in the education budget, pension and judicial reforms are also likely to be on the agenda in the first live television interview Sarkozy will have given since June last year, just before he started his six-month stint at the head of the rotating presidency of the European Union.

When he came to office in May 2007, Sarkozy said that there would be no formal or regular structured "message to the nation" as there had been under previous presidents and that he would pop up on our screens if and when he saw fit.

Tonight's format will be similar to the televised interview Sarkozy gave last April.

Back then he answered questions on a range of issues and admitted that "errors in communication" had been made in the way policy reforms had been introduced, namely that they hadn't been explained sufficiently well - and he promised more transparency.

The difference this time around though is that there's unlikely to be an admission of error, but instead an attempt to set people's minds at rest that the policies and measures the government has been pursuing over the past couple of months have been the right ones and in the interests of the country as a whole.

The country awaits with baited (sic) breath n'est-ce pas?

Hackers gain access to Sarkozy's bank account

Cybercrime might well be on the increase, but you would have thought the person holding a country's highest office would be safer than the rest of us.

Well apparently not - at least not here in France - according to a story revealed in today's edition of the national newspaper, le Journal du Dimanche (LJDD).

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, had his personal bank account hacked into, the newspaper revealed, and "small transactions" had been made.

Sarkozy made an official complaint in September after it was discovered, and a police investigation was immediately launched, his office confirmed on Saturday.

The question currently concerning investigators is how someone managed to gain access to Sarkozy's personal accounts.

According to Christophe Naudin, a criminologist at one of the capital's universities, it was probably much in the same was as criminals gain access to anyone's account.

"Direct hacking would be rare," he told TF1 news. "There are a lot of attempts made, but not many of them are successful," he said.

"It's much more likely that someone managed to get hold of (hard copy) documents containing some element of his banking details, and it was by pure chance that it happened to be his (Sarkozy's) details, he added.

"It could just have well been any other French citizen."

Whatever the method of getting hold of his details, there has been a crime involved and Sarkozy's private account has been hacked into via the Internet

And in the last 12 months, there has been a nine percent rise in such cases according to official statistics, with one of the weak points being the passwords assigned to the Carte Bleue many French carry around with them.

Carte Bleue is a debit card and not a credit card, with a personalised four digit pin-code, which cannot be changed.

Every time you make a payment using the card, there will also be some sort of paper trail via a receipt, which could lead the more unscrupulous among back to an individual's bank account.

Perhaps that should serve as a word of warning to all us every time we make a payment using our credit cards, or Carte Bleue to keep a tight hold on all receipts rather than simply bin them without thinking.

The issue of passwords was also a point taken up by Georges Liberman, the president of Xiring, a company that ensures the security of online banking transactions.

He said that the weak point of the current system here in France was that online access to bank accounts was made using the account number and a password, which although different for each person (and from the one used for the Carte Bleue) could on the whole never be changed. It too remains the same.

Once "cracked" the door would be wide open to hacking.

All the stops may have been pulled to discover who was behind the hacking and how and they gained access to Sarkozy's accounts.

But after a month of investigations, and with the public prosecutor of Nanterre, Philippe Courroye leading the inquiry police are, according to LJDD, no further along in actually discovering "whodunnit".

Outcry over Belgian banker's golden handshake (with update - see end)

Let me put a couple of questions to you. Am I missing something? And just out of interest, what do you think of this?

Monday into Tuesday there were all night negotiations in Belgium to stop the Belgian-French bank Dexia from going belly up with an injection of cash. You might remember that the day before another Belgian bank, Fortis was partially nationalised.

Anyway back to the bailing out of Dexia. The French government provided around €1 billion and he French state-controlled Caisse des dépôts coughed up another €2 billion with the government of Luxembourg chipping in €375 million.

The Belgian state for its part stumped up €3 billion

The grand total - give or take the odd centime - €6.4 billion.

Well guess what.

From reports in the French and Belgian media on Wednesday, Axel Miller - the chief executive of Dexia and by all accounts one of the guys who should take the blame for the company getting itself into such a mess is in the first place, is to get rather a tidy little golden handshake before moving on to pastures new.

The not insubstantial amount of €3.73 million according to the national French daily Le Figaro.

And it's already creating quite a stir within the French government, with the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy reported to be hopping mad about a practice he is eager to see ended, and the spokesman for the government, Luc Chatel, saying what is probably going to be heard from quite a few politicians over the next couple of days.

"I think that at a time when the whole financial system is experiencing the kind of difficulties we all know about - and notably Dexia has faced such problems - this type of practice is particularly shocking in the eyes of the French," he is quoted as saying.


Miller himself confirmed on Tuesday evening on Belgian national television that he was against the idea of golden handshakes (parachutes) when they were unmerited. But in his case it was "different."

"As far as my situation is concerned the practice is not unmerited, as nobody has told me it's unmerited," he said.

Am I missing something?


Update Friday October 3, 2008

After coming under pressure from the French government, which had threatened to withdraw its financing from the bailout, Miller finally announced that he was abandoning his claim to the golden handshake.