New bank and seizure by bailiff

After the traditional banks, online banks have appeared, such as ING or Boursorama for example. These establishments are now competing with FinTechs, which are known as neo banks. We also call them Banks 3.0
Among the many advantages of these neo-banks (which are not all financial institutions) are free accounts, free Visa or Mastercard payment cards, the possibility of immediate transfers, immediate foreign exchange without fees, or the possibility of using monetary currencies and crypto-currencies on the same account...
But these establishments sometimes also offer the domiciliation of the associated bank account (internally or externally) abroad.

Does this last feature allow you to avoid being sued by a bailiff?
Neo banque et saisie par huissier : est-ce incompatible ?

First of all, let's quickly summarize what a neo-bank is:

A neo-bank is a digital bank, accessible only via a mobile application (hence the fact that neo-banks are also called mobile banks). In reality, a neo-bank is not always a bank but generally a payment institution that relies on technological innovations to formulate offers that are more in line with the expectations and behaviour of banking users. Their success lies in their ability to aggregate several technological bricks in order to offer the best services in defined areas at competitive rates (management tools, payment, UX, fluid and ergonomic application, etc.).
Indeed, neo-banks such as Revolut are not (not yet, one should write) a financial institution. The same applies to Qontoa French FinTech that offers mobile banking solutions for professionals and companies.
Other 3.0 banks are, for their part, financial institutions with a European banking licence, such as N26 which has obtained a licence from the German authorities and therefore offers banking services (including in France) with a German IBAN, or Nickel which offers a French IBAN with the Financière des Paiements.

banques-en-ligne.fr

This raises the question of the possibility of evading one's creditors by using the services of neo-banks, which are, as we have seen, either payment institutions or sometimes foreign banks.

As far aspayment institutions are concerned, it is important to know that they are backed by a banking institution in order to offer their services. This banking institution may be French or foreign.
When you open an account with Revolut, for example, the account is physically held by a bank. In this case, Lloyd's in the United Kingdom.
Conversely, accounts opened with Qonto are held by Treezor, a French banking institution headquartered in Levallois Perret, which has developed APIs to enable Qonto (but also Lydia, for example) to use its services.
To put it simply, Qonto or Lydia use Treezor's white-label services, and enhance them with exclusive services

For these neo-banks which are not financial institutions, and which are backed by a banking institution in France, the seizure of accounts is carried out in the same way as a seizure in the hands of a classic banking institution (traditional bank, such as Société Générale, HSBC ... or online bank such as ING or Boursorama). With a writ of execution or even without a writ of execution in the case of protective seizures.
There is no difference between a seizure of a Nickel or Qonto account and the seizure of a LCL or La Banque Postale account.
Bank accounts are indeed listed in the Bank Account File (FICOBA) which a bailiff, carrying a writ of execution, can consult.
It should also be noted thatour office has a secure connection with the FICOBA and that the exchange of data is dematerialised for almost immediate information.
A seizure of these accounts is therefore entirely possible without difficulty.

You will have understood that the neobanks which are French financial institutions (it is notably the case for Hello Bank for example) the answer is the same, for the same reasons.

The question is less obvious at first glance for neo-banks that are backed by a financial institution holding accounts abroad (Revolut with Lloyd's, for example) or those that themselves hold a European licence obtained abroad (N26, for example, whose funds are held in Germany).

However, Regulation (EU) No 655/2014 of 15 May 2014 creating a European order for the precautionary seizure of bank accounts came into force on 18 January 2017.
Since this date,seizures of an account held within the European Union (except for Denmark and the United Kingdom) are facilitated.
The procedure requires an application for judicial authorisation to the court in the country of origin.

An application for an order of protective attachment shall be filed with the judge who is competent to give a decision on the merits of the case.

The creditor must provide sufficient evidence to convince the court that :

• there is a real risk that, in the absence of such a protective measure, the subsequent recovery of his claim will be prevented or made significantly more difficult ;
• its claim against the debtor is declared manifestly well-founded.

In order to guarantee the element of surprise, the procedure is unilateral. The debtor shall not be informed of the application for the protective attachment order or heard before the order is issued.

Once the order is issued, the seizure shall take place in the country in which the account is maintained.

This procedure is perfectly mastered by our firm, which can take care of the necessary steps to seize an account held abroad, whether it is a neo bank or a traditional establishment.

The question of information remains. How can the judicial officer have that a debtor has an account with a neo bank whose funds are held abroad?

In two ways: On the one hand, remember that the holding of an account abroad is subject to declaration to the tax authorities. New banks are no exception to the rule. In fact, only PayPal is an exception to the rule: in an instruction dated November 12, 2013, the tax authorities have admitted that bank accounts opened abroad and intended to buy or sell on the Internet may be exempt from declaration. On one condition: that the sum of the collections made by the holder does not exceed €10,000 per year.

However, bailiffs have access to the tax profile and have access to the information. It should also be noted that failure to declare a foreign account to the tax authorities is punishable by a fine of 1,500.00 euros, but also by a presumption of bad faith that could lead to taxation of 80% of the income linked to these accounts.

To declare your foreign accounts to the tax authorities, you must use this Cerfa form every year, which can be downloaded here.

Furthermore, European Regulation 655/2014 provides for the possibility of querying files equivalent to FICOBA.

An account held with N26, for example, will appear on the German equivalent of FICOBA.

Here again, our study is perfectly capable of launching the appropriate procedure to obtain the desired information from the various European files.

To sum up: neo banking and seizure by bailiff are not incompatible. The interest of these establishments is undeniable, but to think that opening an account there will allow one to escape from one's creditors is illusory.