The French banker's draft: getting one in time, and checking the one handed to you

It is an instrument many foreign buyers believe extinct, and rediscover at the worst moment: when a procedure requires one and three days remain. The banker’s draft is in no way archaic in France, it has simply become specialised.

What sets it apart from an ordinary cheque?

It is drawn by the bank itself, not by you. The sum is debited from your account on issue and set aside, which gives the payee a certainty an ordinary cheque does not offer: the funds exist, they have already left.

That certainty is what certain procedures are buying. It explains why it turns up wherever an undertaking must be proved on the spot, notably for the deposit required before an auction.

How long does it take to obtain?

Far longer than people imagine, when you are a non-resident.

First you need a funded French account, which assumes an incoming transfer already credited and, often, already checked. Then the request to issue, which is not always instant: depending on the institution, the draft is printed in branch, ordered remotely, or sent by post. Lastly the handover to the payee, who may require an original in person.

Each link takes days, and none of them speeds up. So reason backwards from the date the draft must be in the payee’s hands, not from the date you intend to ask for it.

To whose name, and for what amount?

Neither of these can be improvised, and neither can be corrected.

The payee must be named exactly as the procedure requires, and it is not always the person you have in mind: in several operations the draft is made out to a stakeholder or a designated third party, not to the seller. An error in the wording makes the draft unusable and means starting again.

The amount must be the one the reference document states, to the cent where it is the result of a regulated calculation. Ask for the exact wording in writing before going to the bank, and reread the draft before leaving the counter.

And if you are the one receiving one?

Then caution changes sides, because forged banker’s drafts exist and they are well made. A piece of paper can carry the expected watermark, wording and signature without any account having been debited.

Only one check is worth anything: calling the issuing branch, on a number you found yourself in the bank’s official directory, and having the issue of the draft, its number and its amount confirmed. Never the number printed on the draft, never the one given to you by the person handing it over.

It is the same reflex that protects against transfer fraud: never validate a piece of information through the channel that brought it to you.

What to take away

The banker’s draft is an instrument of certainty, and that certainty is paid for in time. For a buyer living abroad it is therefore not handled as a means of payment but as an item in the file: identified early, its exact form checked, and the timetable traced back to the transfer that funds it.