French Banking

[Nightowl]

Can someone tell me whether French banks typically take a long time to transfer money to foreign banks? We have taken a booking from French couple who say they transferred the funds to our spanish bank on the 17th March - and it still hasn;t appeared in our account. They say it has come out of their account. The payment is in euro so I can't see why it would take this long, unless that is the norm when transferring from France to Spanish banks? Can anyone shed any light or is it likely that there is a problem? I have asked her to investigate whether her bank have paid it into the wrong account... trouble is it's for a late booking and they go at the end of April so I haven't long to sort it out before I have to make a decision to send keys whether or not the money is in....

Grateful for any comments anyone might have...

Knightowl

[Nessie]

When i transfer money from France to the UK , our bank tells us to allow 5 working days.
We had a transfer from germany which took 4 days.

[Nightowl]

Thanks Nessie, I think there must be a problem with our transfer which needs investigating... this one has had 10 days now....

[paolo]

I don't know about transfers to Spain but I know that one bank I have to receive transfers to in France can take weeks. They claim to have no knowledge of the transfer until one day it appears in the account. I think this is either so they can benefit from the interest, or for money-laundering/security reasons, or both.

[Nightowl]

Well I have asked her to check with her bank but it is difficult to know what do do if it doesn't appear at our end soonish... I don't doubt they are genuine and have sent the money but I don't want to give them the keys until I have it either.... well, we have a couple of weeks to sort it out before the keys become an issue, so I hope it gets sorted....

[Nightowl]

well, just to update - it finally arrived in our account today - 11 days after the renter did the transfer - seems like it went out of her account pretty smartish, so the French system have had the use of the money for all that time - we all know that in reality electronic transfers can be instant... multiply that by the millions of bank transfers that go on every day and the billions of euros involved each day , no wonder the banks are earning so much interest on our money and able to pay their city boys such huge bonuses....

do I sound cynical.???

[Hells Bells]

I transferred several sums to my French account from a UK one, all took only 5 days maximum.

[A-two]

Knightowl,
I don't know about French banks, but sounds to me like there was another bank involved as well as the sending and receiving bank. It all depends on how the money is routed, and not all banks have their own SWIFT codes, hence either bank may be using a banking partner like AMEX or similar to re-route, rather than sending direct.

I would ask to someone in your bank who handles this side of things to explain the delay, because it could be on either side.

A small bank I was using also kept me waiting 11 days, so I switched the account to a larger bank to see whether it made a difference and the next one came through in 24 hours. Maybe worth looking into.

And I completely agree with you about what they are doing with the money in the intervening period. Someone is getting the interest on it, for sure, and my money is on a 3rd bank in the middle of your transaction that they didn't even tell you or the sender was involved. I suspect they hold onto it for a while in lieu of being paid a bank fee, otherwise it doesn't make sense that one bank can do it in 24 hours while another takes 11 days. One would have thought that it is only the click of a mouse.

I'd be interested if you find out more or receive a different explanation.

[Nightowl]

Hi Joanna

yes, you are probably right, that would be the most likely explanation for the delay.. but it surprised me considering that both are euro banks, theirs in France and ours in spain; I just didn't expect it to take a long time as both are dealing in the same currency. Most of our bookings involve converting sterling to euro, and these usually get through within a week or so, so 11 days is just unheard of....

I doubt I'll get to the bottom of it though, the lady who booked is French and although her english is better than my french I haven't the heart to ask her to investigate it any further now that the payment is in. And then to find the right English to attempt to explain it to me...And our spanish bank always say they have no control over how quickly an incoming transaction happens...

so it will remain one of life's great mysteries....

[cromercrabholiday]

I sat in on a meeting with my current client's bankers this week and the subject of cash concentration in Europe was discussed. Their recommendation was that the businesses should go with multi-national banks as they were part of the Swift system as a matter of course and local banks often weren't - I suspect that one or both of the banks involved in your transaction were outside the system and the cash had to pass throught one or two intermediaries.

John

[A-two]

.. the lady who booked is French and although her english is better than my french I haven't the heart to ask her to investigate it any further now that the payment is in.

Hi Knightowl,
I agree that it wouldn't be wise to press her, and if your Spanish bank is part of the SWIFT system for future transactions, there's nothing more you can do. Every time I have a delay in receiving payment, whether "the cheque/check is in the mail" or an electronic transfer like yours that goes AWOL, I swear I'm going to get a merchant account because it's not worth the stress for anybody. We accept credit cards through the Paypal system, but it doesn't seem popular and nobody has taken us up on that so far even though we offer to split the fees.

By the way John, I switched to a SWIFT bank that is not a multinational bank, but you're right that a small community bank is less likely to be on it than a multinational. And the small bank is not going to tell you unless specifically asked that it could take 3 weeks for a transfer to arrive, so it's one of those important questions to ask before opening an account.