Is high-end focused online banking worth it?

In the lap of Crédit Agricole, BforBank is an online bank that originally cultivated a high-end philosophy and was aimed at a wealthy audience. However, it has aligned itself against the competition by offering more accessible offers while maintaining its identity. It is also distinguished by its range of varied banking products and its trading platform. But, can we consider it today as a bank like the others? This is what we will try to answer in this review.

BforBank Features

BforBank in a nutshell

Created in 2009, BforBank was originally an online banking establishment aimed at a fairly restricted wealthy audience. As a Crédit Agricole brand, it benefits from the network and personalized products of traditional banking while giving its customers the ability to access their accounts on the Internet, as well as a dedicated trading platform.

In recent years, BforBank has undergone a change of identity to meet the requirements of the ultra-competitive online banking market. Now it offers its services to a more diverse clientele that wants to move towards a premium online bank.

Bforbank: 3 cards, including free access

BforBank is quite classic in its pricing approach. Online banking offers three types of cards: Visa Classic, Visa Premier and Visa Infinite. The first two are accessible for free with rental conditions, a bit like the accounts offered in a Fortuneo, for example: from 1,200 euros net/month for the Clásica and 1,600 euros net/month for the Premier card.

The Visa Infinite card is special since it is accessible for the sum of 200 euros per year, or slightly less than 17 euros per month, in addition to having to justify an income of at least 4,000 euros net/month. The latter, therefore, is intended for the richest and offers the highest level of guarantees and insurance.

Open an account with BforBank

Opening a BforBank online account is fairly simple, but it’s only done through the bank’s website, so don’t expect everything you can do from the app. As with its competitors, as long as you have all the necessary documents at hand, it only takes a quarter of an hour, watch in hand. However, the form is quite annoying to fill out and some questions can be a bit intrusive. We also noticed that some fields were added as the population progressed, which tends to be annoying.

Point that is important: BforBank requires proof of an income level of at least 1200 euros net per month. You are even required to provide the first two pages of your tax notice to prove it. This is what differentiates the level of treatment of the bank compared to others.

Once these formalities are completed, you are asked to transfer 150 euros to the account by bank transfer, check or cash (through the Crédit Agricole office) to validate the opening of the account.

In our case, the file was validated in less than a week and the bank card received in our mailbox after 15 days. This is a fairly long waiting time compared to certain neobanks, but it remains within the average of online banks on the market.

Management of initial deposits and overdrafts

Regardless of the subscription level, BforBank asks its clients for an initial deposit of at least 150 euros to open the account. This necessarily underlines the premium character of the bank, so that people who cannot afford it turn to a less selective bank.

Question authorization overdraft, BforBank is also selective. If you effectively allow your customers to be debtors, they are subject to the gaze of the bank itself. The annual interest rate of the overdraft line is 7%. This fee increases to 16% in the event of an unauthorized overdraft or overdraft authorization. However, no account intervention commission is charged, which is a good point compared to other premium banks that do not hesitate to increase the bill.

referral bonus

BforBank’s referral offer allows customers to earn a reward bonus when they refer family members to online banking. This bonus is 80 euros for the godfather and 80 euros for the godson. A lower amount than other online banks, but still attractive. It can still happen that this premium is higher depending on the promotional periods.

BforBank insurance, offers and services

Accounts at BforBank are linked to the VISA organization. Therefore, your customers depend on the insurance package associated with the chosen card level. The Visa Premium card has the most comprehensive level of insurance, including full travel guarantees.

BforBank is a subsidiary of Crédit Agricole and therefore offers additional banking products that are generally reserved for traditional banks. Therefore, clients can take out a consumer loan or a mortgage, subject to acceptance and at a fixed rate. We would have liked to be able to make sure we had access to it from the app, but obviously that’s not the case yet, the procedure is done only through customer support.

In addition to these products, BforBank also offers free savings account opening and also investing in the stock market through dedicated tools, a bit like Fortuneo. Unfortunately, this is not a part that we have been able to exploit, but they do have the merit of existing.

An online bank without a Cashback program

An item widely promoted by banks these days, BforBank does not have its own Cashback platform. Worse yet, the online bank does not offer any partnership with specialized platforms to get deferred refunds on your online purchases.

100% efficient online customer service

BforBank’s Customer Service is accessible through the application or the web platform 24/7. He can be contacted via live chat and online ticketing system or via a form. In this case, we had no problem getting our questions answered, but more often than not via a fairly well-designed bot, at least for simple questions. We would have liked a dedicated phone line.

And the cryptocurrency?

Unfortunately, BforBank does not offer to invest in cryptocurrency or transfer funds from any dedicated platform like Binance. This is a very harmful point, because online banking claims to be modern in its approach and, above all, it also allows its customers to invest through a dedicated exchange platform.

Our opinion on the BforBank mobile application

The BforBank app is quite simple, even simplistic. It provides the minimum, such as viewing expenses and receipts in your bank or savings account, making transfers, managing your bank card and automatically categorizing user expenses. On the other hand, we regret the absence of notification of the movement of money in real time, as it happens with other banking applications. Another bad point, more practical: it is impossible to open an account directly from the application, you will necessarily go through the bank’s website.

We continue to appreciate the overall ergonomics and organization of the categories, with tabs located at the top and bottom to navigate the menus.

The other good points concern the support for biometric identification (fingerprint, Face ID), but also the “bank account statement“. Specifically, all you have to do is enter a threshold for the app to display the status, in the form of time, of your bank account. This is quite a welcome gadget for those who like to check their accounts in one go. glance.

It is also possible to create your own budgets to categorize your expenses as you wish, although recently the application allows you to do it automatically, but not necessarily in a more relevant way.

Last app highlight: if Apple Pay is present, we still notice the absence of Google Pay or other third-party mobile payment services. A rather critical point when compared to other online banks that are much better provided on this side.