Credit cards are much more accepted in Europe than before, but they're still not nearly as universally accepted like in the US. Thus you still need cash pretty regularly which can be a problem as I'm still getting paid in USD into my US bank account. This typically works out better since I pay off my US credit cards (which is still most of my spending) with my US bank accounts, but still need some cash.
After getting tired of the ridiculous ATM fees ($15 for a withdrawal in some cases!) I figured there had to be a better way of transferring money into my French bank account, which allows for free withdrawals. Unfortunately doing a wire transfer from Bank of America to my French account was $70, so that seemed incredibly ridiculous as well.
After some Googling, I came across the idea of using Paypal to transfer money from my US bank account to my French bank account. So I decided to try it out.
As you can't link a French bank account to a US Paypal account, you must first create a new and separate French Paypal account. Initially you have to go to paypal.fr and open the account all in French. But thankfully after you create it, you can set the language to English, so it becomes much easier to use. So after creating the French Paypal account, you need to link your French bank account to it. This took about 8 business days to happen, as France Paypal will send a few cents to your French bank account to verify that you are the owner of the account. Once you submit to Paypal the amounts they deposited (as proof) then you're good to go. You'll also be given the option to print a form to send to your bank so you can withdrawal from your French bank account, but for our purposes it wouldn't be necessary (though I did it anyways, just dropping the printed and filled out sheet of paper at my local branch with a cutout of my RIB (several copies of which are given to you when you open a French bank account))
Then login into your US Paypal account, and navigate to the page to send money to another user. Put in your French Paypal account email address, and select to send. It'll charge a .5% fee. So for $100 it would be 50 cents, or for $1000 it would be $5. Not bad compared to the wire transfer/ATM rates. The first time you do this, it'll take a 4 days for the money to be received into the French Paypal account (you have the option of using your credit card for an instant transfer, but at a higher fee rate). But after you do it the first time, it's instantaneous to do it from your bank account from then on.
Once you send the money from the US Paypal account, you'll get an email from your French Paypal account that money was sent and then have to click a link to confirm the transfer. You'll then be given the option of keeping it in USD or converting it to Euro. Unfortuantly the conversion rate isn't great (as compared to Googling "$100 USD to Euro"), but it still ends up being cheaper than wire transfers/ATM fees. For $800 USD, Google said it would be 580.80€ but Paypal gives you 565.03€. So about $22 in fees, which isn't trivial, but much cheaper than doing the equivalent in ATM transfers (as you're limited per withdrawal) or wire transfers.
Once the money arrives in the French Paypal account (again, 4 days for the first time, instantaneous for every time after that) then you can "withdrawal" the money and transfer it to your French bank account. This takes 2 days. And voila, a much easier, and (after the first time) quick way to transfer large sums of money between USD and Euro.
Update: 3 months into this adventure I find out that BNP Paribas has a deal with Bank of America for free ATM withdraws. Which neither of the BoA representatives mentioned when I explicitly asked about this, twice, before I left for France. So when using BoA this is the cheapest way to get cash in France (and elsewhere around Europe as there are several partner banks in this "Global ATM Alliance") but I'm peeved I've wasted so much in stupid fees that I didn't even need to do! There is still a 3% "foreign transaction fee" but it's still the best deal so far.
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