Change bank

It is estimated that more than 2 million French people change bank each year (Study Cabinet Bain 2015). Over an entire year, more than 3% of households take the leap towards a new one. This number is constantly increasing and accelerating: the French are more and more unfaithful, banking speaking, even if 38% keep the old account open! To change bank, it is mainly an online bank that is chosen, followed by the Post Office and mutual banks. The big losers in this account transfer are the old banks with branches which do not gain customers, but lose them.

Why change bank?

More and more customers no longer accept price increases and bank fees which increase regularly. Many operations that were free until now are now included in packs (or conventions ) which are paid!

The main reasons for a change of bank are:

• the difficulty of having an adviser by telephone for one in three clients. Gone are the days when you could just call your bank branch. You must now go through a voice server or a platform (located somewhere in the world) which makes you waste money and time.
• the pricing of current transactions (for 29% of French people), such as cash withdrawals, transfers to another bank.
• lastly, a refusal of mortgage or an overpriced loan proposal . It's quite astonishing, but a banker often goes to more effort to gain a client than to keep one.

How to change banks ?

1 / First step, open a bank account in another establishment by indicating that you come from another bank. Do not close your old account so that all the operations already programmed can be carried out. The new bank must now take care of forwarding withdrawals and IBAN changes (RIB) to all the organizations that withdraw from your account.

2 / New procedure February 2017 : tell your new bank that you want to benefit from the Macron law on Banking Mobility . Give him your old IBAN (RIB). Sign the mobility mandate by which you ask your new bank to notify all the organizations that withdraw from your account.
From that moment your new bank has 22 days to register your new bank details with all organizations. Note that mortgage loans (if they were taken out in the old bank), life insurance and savings accounts (PEL, CEL) are excluded from this mandate.

Otherwise, you can still use the old procedure:
1 / Notify your employer by communicating your new IBAN (RIB). Ask him on what date the recognition will be effective ...

2 / Notify organizations having access to your debit or credit account.
Take stock, using your account statement, to list the organizations that charge your account (go back over 6 months for more security):

• Administrations, Public Treasury
• Services, Insurance (home, auto ..), Telephony, Energy, ...
• Finances, Credits, Savings ...

• Employer
• Mutuals, Social Security, Allowances

To make sure you don't forget anything, download our Bank Change memo , you can check off as the changes are taken into account.

Notify all of these establishments of your new bank details . If you do the couriers you can follow our standard models .

Note, some establishments take more or less time to react to take into account your change of bank. Usually you are notified because they send you a new direct debit authorization to sign and send back to them .

IMPORTANT: carefully monitor your accounts for 2 months to verify that all your transactions have gone through the new account. Once you have no more pending checks and credit card payments, you can balance your old account by transferring the balance to the new account. If you no longer wish to use the first account, it is up to you to request its closure yourself (which is NOT automatic in the procedure). Be careful, if you forget, your old bank will charge you account maintenance or inactivity fees!

See as well :

Too many bank charges? Bank fees
To go further, see our Comparison of online banks
Open an online account with Hello bank!
Open an online account with ING
Comparison of free bank cards.
What to do if your account is closed by the bank?