I think that SG was one of the first banks in France to offer ‘Fast Payments’ instant euro transfers many years ago…
If you want to sign up to TorFX, let me know and I will pass on £30 of the £50 finders bonus to you 
Banque Populaire uses Wise for its international transfers. As I never send money out of France I’ve never tried it but it can’t be any more efficient that me using Wise in the other direction.
I’d forgotten all about that, but I would have thought 50/50 would have been fair. 
Very kind offer but before I sign up I need to find out how I could get funds to them quickly.
I also have a Wise account, but am now running into this same problem of not being able to transfer money to them sufficiently fast, for them to do a prearranged transfer to my UK bank.
How about if I accumulate funds - in my own time - in my Wise euros “pot”. And then, when the rate’s good, send it to my UK bank account?
Would Wise indicate in advance how much the euros would come out at in sterling, in the same way they do when you just use them as a currency exchange service?
Sorry am probably not being very clear. I used to use Wise purely as a currency exchange service. And now I have a fully fledged account with them, with a euros pot and a sterling pot.
Actually I’ve just checked and it seems Wise guarantees the rate for 48 hours. Surely that should be enough time for the Soc Gen to get the funds to them.
I think I’ll give TorFX a ring next week and ask them how long they guarantee their rates for.
There’s a new EU rule just come in that says that banks are not allowed to charge extra for instantaneous transfers. But I’m not sure if the banks are obliged to offer them.
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Hi
Do the French banks do instantaneous transfers to foreign accounts, over the counter?
Certainly I can do them myself online to other French accounts and for very limited amounts.
I’ll ask them tomorrow but am pretty sure the answer will be “we have no control over how long it takes the receiving bank to credit it to your account”.
Oh yes that’s a favourite.
Apologies to those who have heard this anecdote before - some years ago I sent a few thousand dollars from my account with Royal Bank of Canada in Turks & Caicos to my Nationwide account in the UK.
The money went from Turks & Caicos to the Bahamas to New York then to HSBC in London, and (eventually) to Nationwide. The money didn’t arrive for several weeks and nobody could tell me where it was or why it was delayed. HSBC would not even talk to me about it because “I was not a customer of theirs”.
As a result I was late with an Amex payment and got charged a penalty.
I recommend the National Bank of Biscuit Tin Under the Bed…
We had similar, we had a panic watching the exchange rates after we’d moved back to Oz in 2008 and moved all our money back to France, no problems getting it there but when we (and the world) calmed down we wanted it back in Australia. Credit Lyonnais in Castelnaudary transferred it, but same thing, it was lost for around a week! It was all our house money, can’t remember exactly but nigh on 200,000e. Very very scary!!!
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It’s not lost. An intervening bank will be investing it on the money markets - earning from it - for every day your money is “in transit” these days or “lost”.
There are enormous sums invested every night like this by banks, and earned on for every single day you don’t have your money, all over the world. This has been the case for decades.
The only genuine delay these days would be if a very obscure currency or country is involved.
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Nobody is going to be earning much interest from my money in transit. When I’m using Wise I say how much I want to send and where to send it and the app takes me to my HSBC account, I sign in, send the money and click on the link to get back to Wise. These days an SMS has arrived from my French Bank telling me my money has arrived before I’m back with Wise. That’s seconds after I’ve clicked on send the money.
Hi, you could sign up for a Revolut account. On line baking with good exchange rates and advantages when you add to your Google Wallet. My daughter and ex-wife live in the UK and use theirs whenever they visit me here and I use it with no problems when I visit the UK.
I use a Halifax Clarity card. No charge on purchases.
Also no charge on cash withdrawal, IF you go online and pay it off the same day.
Can you still have that if you live in France?
You can’t apply for one if you are not UK resident, but maybe they allow you to keep one after you move, like Nationwide do with their accounts.
I have one and will test that for you if you can hang on a year or two! 
I also have one but I’m still officially resident in the UK. I’ll find out in a couple of weeks 
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Might be worth dropping them an email to ask. Or just do the change of address and see what happens.
They say you can’t have a savings account but there is no mention of not being able to keep credit cards here:
https://www.halifax.co.uk/savings/help-guidance/non-uk-residents.html
…and it does say that they will send correspondence, statements and cards to an overseas address!
I kept it when I left the UK. I don’t think you can get a new one if French resident.
Did you change your address to France? I’d like to hang on to mine too, as it’s quite useful
I’ve been a French resident for eight years and have kept my Nationwide Flex account. As posted previously, it’s great for online purchases as one can use the card reader for verification, rather than hanging out of an upstairs window in hope of getting a cell phone signal.
Always keep in mind that all this post-Brexit pain is utterly worth it so that the UK can sell 2% more cheese to Japan…