Financing and paying
You give your Belgian, Luxembourg or Spanish IBAN to the electricity supplier, and the form rejects it; the managing agent replies that it needs “a French bank account”. Before rushing to find a bank, know that this refusal is usually unlawful, and that a written request naming the rule lifts it in many cases. This dossier says what European law provides, what to reply and to whom, and when a French account remains the answer.
By Jean Mascla, founder of Home Select Updated · 6 min read
You have just bought in France, you give your Belgian, Luxembourg or Spanish IBAN to the electricity supplier, and the form refuses it. Or the managing agent replies that they need "a French RIB". The reflex is to look for a bank urgently. Before that, you should know that this refusal is most often unlawful, and that saying two precise sentences lifts it in a good share of cases.
The European regulation on euro transfers and direct debits established a simple principle: within the single euro payments area, one account is worth another. A creditor who accepts payment by SEPA direct debit must accept it from any account in the area, and cannot require the account to be held in a particular country. The same rule applies to incoming transfers, and to the payment of a salary.
Refusal based solely on the IBAN’s country has a name, IBAN discrimination, and it is unlawful. It makes no difference whether the creditor is an energy supplier, a telecom operator, a co-ownership managing agent, an insurance company or an administration.
The area concerned is wider than the euro area. It covers the European Union states, and also the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino, Andorra and the Vatican. A Swiss or British IBAN is therefore a SEPA IBAN for euro transactions, which many customer service teams do not know.
In the vast majority of cases, nobody is trying to harm you. Three causes share the ground.
The form. The site’s IBAN field technically only accepts twenty-seven characters beginning with FR, because it was built that way ten years ago. The adviser cannot enter anything else, however willing.
Lack of awareness. Customer service applies an outdated internal instruction and replies in good faith that a French RIB is needed.
The paper direct debit mandate. Some creditors still have an old-format mandate signed, which makes no provision for a foreign BIC code.
None of these three causes makes the refusal lawful, but all of them make lifting it slow: you do not persuade a form.
Île de Ré, Sud-Ouest
The effective approach comes in three stages, and it is written, never by telephone.
For a co-ownership managing agent, the route is different: direct debit is never compulsory, and the co-ownership rules cannot impose it. You can pay the calls for funds by transfer, quoting the lot reference, which avoids the problem entirely.
Asserting your right takes from a few days to several weeks, creditor by creditor. And you have to start again for each one: electricity, gas, water, internet, insurance, the managing agent, local taxes. Opening a French account takes two to six weeks, once, and settles every case at a stroke, including those where the foreign IBAN is genuinely impossible.
There are moreover two situations where the French account is not a convenience but a necessity, and where no right will help you.
Our guide to opening an account remotely details the process, and the one on the right to an account the fallback when banks refuse.
Financing is prepared before the search. From the first meeting, your Home Select property finder puts you in touch with a broker used to non-residents, so that your offer arrives financed and the bank’s calendar fits within that of the preliminary contract.
Bank, currency, paperwork: we introduce the partners who handle these subjects every week, and we make sure the bank, the notaire and the currency provider receive the same documents. Each acts under their own responsibility; our role is that nothing is missing on the day the money must move.
No. The European regulation on euro transfers and direct debits requires a creditor who accepts a SEPA direct debit to accept it from any account in the area, with no distinction by country. Refusing an IBAN solely because it does not begin with FR is IBAN discrimination, and it is unlawful. Refusal nevertheless remains frequent, most often because the supplier’s form does not technically accept it.
First to the creditor itself, in writing, citing the regulation: in many cases the customer service is unaware of the rule and the blockage lifts at that stage. If the refusal persists, it can be reported to the French consumer protection and fraud control authority, which is the competent authority in France for this matter.
The SEPA area goes beyond the euro area: it covers the Union states, plus the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino, Andorra and the Vatican. A Swiss or British IBAN is therefore indeed a SEPA IBAN for euro transactions. An account in the United States, Canada, Brazil or the UAE, however, is not in the area, and no SEPA direct debit can originate from it.
The effective approach comes in three stages, and it is written, never by telephone. For a co-ownership managing agent, the route is different: direct debit is never compulsory, and the co-ownership rules cannot impose it. You can pay the calls for funds by transfer, quoting the lot reference, which avoids the problem entirely.
The European regulation on euro transfers and direct debits established a simple principle: within the single euro payments area, one account is worth another. A creditor who accepts payment by SEPA direct debit must accept it from any account in the area, and cannot require the account to be held in a particular country. The same rule applies to incoming transfers, and to the payment of a salary.
In the vast majority of cases, nobody is trying to harm you. Three causes share the ground. The form. The site’s IBAN field technically only accepts twenty-seven characters beginning with FR, because it was built that way ten years ago. The adviser cannot enter anything else, however willing.
Asserting your right takes from a few days to several weeks, creditor by creditor. And you have to start again for each one: electricity, gas, water, internet, insurance, the managing agent, local taxes. Opening a French account takes two to six weeks, once, and settles every case at a stroke, including those where the foreign IBAN is genuinely impossible.
Further reading
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