French bank accounts

bob_adcock

I now live in France and have my pension paid into a French bank by electronic transfer.They seem to be completely unaware of the new legislation covering these transfers as they take up to 5 days to credit my account. I have complained to the bank who steadfastly ignore me because I am just a customer.I have written to the EU commissioner and have a letter from him telling me they are acting illegally I have changed my French bank and have been reimbursed for any fines by my previous bank. My new bank is now doing the same thing. Apart from setting light to the branch,can anyone advise me how I may progress this problem . It is rife in France and badly effect all on low incomes.

jonesMUFCforever

Where does the pension originate from - UK or France?

colsten

What legislation is being ignored, and by whom?

boo_star

Are you talking about SEPA?

If so banks only need to transfer in a guaranteed time, which varies by bank.

Either the originating bank only guarantees five days or the receiving bank is mucking it up but if two different banks are taking five days I'd lean towards the originator only guaranteeing five days.

Edit: As you mention a pension, is it paid in pounds? If so it isn't covered by SEPA and there's no guaranteed time.

System

colsten wrote: »

What legislation is being ignored, and by whom?

The EU Payment Services Directive. By the French bank. The Directive is implemented in the UK by Statutory Instrument. I don't know what the equivalent implementation is in France, but there must be one. Under the Directive, payments sent within an EU country, and sent from one EU country to another, must be credited same or next (business) day.
See http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/payments/docs/framework/psd_consumers/psd_en.pdf
(The European Parliament has just approved a new version, which will soon require same day payments.)
If he hasn't already, the OP should follow his French bank's complaints procedure. He could also contact the AFDCE.
http://www.afdce.org/accueil.php
He might also contact any local association for retired people.

colsten

How does the PSD apply to pension payments?

It would be helpful if the OP could provide more information. Such as who the pension is paid by, in which currency, and into which account.

System

If the payment is coming from any EU country (including, at least for the time being, the UK) it doesn't make any difference what currency it is sent in. The Directive applies to all transfers within the EU (plus EEA). It's what forced UK banks to stop the BACS Direct Credits 3-day rip-off, and introduce Faster Payments.

colsten

YoungNick wrote: »

If the payment is coming from any EU country (including, at least for the time being, the UK) it doesn't make any difference what currency it is sent in. The Directive applies to all transfers within the EU (plus EEA). It's what forced UK banks to stop the BACS Direct Credits 3-day rip-off, and introduce Faster Payments.

You are assuming that the pension gets paid into a UK bank account in the name of the OP, and that the UK bank has an instruction from the OP to send the money to his french bank account. This may or may not be the case. The pension might get paid directly by the pension provider into the french bank account. Many pension providers use the Worldlink service for payment to pensioners living abroad, and I don't believe the PSD applies to Worldlink.
EDIT: appears I am wrong there and PSD does apply to Worldlink but this does not mean that there is a same day service.http://citibank.com/transactionservices/home/about_us/articles/docs/wlrb122013F.pdf. As I said before, it would be useful to get some additional detail from the OP as it's quite unclear so far where the payments are coming from and how they are supposed to get to his french account.

BTW, all pensions and most salaries that get paid into UK bank accounts do get paid through what you describe as the "BACS Direct Credits 3-day rip-off". They all arrive in time 99.999% of the time.