Question 4833 — banks and financial institutions

Summary

Mr. Christopher Weissberg draws the attention of the Minister Delegate to the Minister of the Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty, responsible for public accounts, to the consequences that the government amendment to the PLFSS 2023 concerning the end of the payment of social benefits excluding pensions into non-French or non-European bank accounts could have for French people abroad. On October 20, 2022, the Minister Gabriel Attal announced that social benefits excluding pensions could no longer be paid into non-French or non-European bank accounts from July 1, 2023, with the aim of combating fraud. This amendment will help to remove doubts about the real existence of the beneficiary and to combat social benefit fraud. The MP would however like to know, on the one hand, what is covered precisely the term “social allowances”, that is to say the social benefits concerned by the ban on payment into foreign bank accounts. On the other hand, not all French people living abroad have a bank account in France. For some people, particularly American residents, it is very difficult to open a bank account in France, with French banks having the right to refuse them this opening. account, under article L312-1 of the Monetary and Financial Code (II, al.4). According to this same article, “the credit institution which has refused to open an account informs the applicant that he can ask the Banque de France to designate a credit institution to open an account for him” (III, al.2). But the Court of Auditors, in its 2021 public report, underlined that “less than half of the applicants questioned declare having become aware of the procedure through the bank which refused them the opening of an account. Furthermore, according to the Court of Auditors, 34% of designations made by the Banque de France in 2019 did not result in the opening of an account. Despite the removal of the obligation for banks to produce a certificate of refusal to open an account (implicit refusal system which came into force on June 13 2022), the right to an account is still not perfectly effective for many French people established abroad. This means that the end of the payment of social benefits to foreign bank accounts could lead French people established outside France, who are nevertheless entitled to social benefits, to no longer receive them, being unable to open a French bank account. He would therefore like to know the measures envisaged by the minister to further strengthen the right to an account and ensure that the end of the payment of social benefits into foreign bank accounts, although necessary, is not detrimental to French people living abroad.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

Timeline

1. 24 January 2023

   Question

   Source: DateQuestion

Votes

No vote records are attached yet.

Versions

No version snapshots stored. Document URLs remain at the source.

Documents

No documents linked.

Sponsors

• Christopher Weissberg · auteur

Related records

No cross-record relationships stored yet.