John and Melanie Learn About French Banking

Today we had an appointment at HSBC to set up a bank account. Pretty Simple made the appointment to ensure that we had an English speaker. Like everyone else we've met here he was very nice.

There are apparently HSBC banks all over the world

Unfortunately, since we are Americans, we were only able to fill out paperwork today. When we get approved, sometime next week, we'll have to come back again to actually open the account. It will probably be another week after that before we get our bank cards.

On the plus side, I was glad to see that the bank is very close to where I work. That will make things easier.

We took out some cash and converted it into Euros to put in our new account, when we have one, but we discovered that French banks don't accept cash deposits! (Not big ones, anyway.) The bank rep told us there is a limit of about 500 euros. Not sure if that is daily, weekly, or monthly.

I asked him what we should do with the money we brought with us and he jokingly replied, "You're in Paris. Go spend it! There are some lovely, and very expensive, shops just down the street!"

NOTE: Other banks in France may accept cash deposits, we don't know for sure.

Tomorrow, we are meeting Carole Losa to go look at apartments. It should be a long busy day but we are excited!