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Are you a client? You should contact your private banker. 
You are not a client but would like to have more information about Societe Generale Private Banking? Please fill in the form below.

Local contacts

France: +33 (0)1 53 43 87 00 (9am - 6pm)
Luxembourg: +352 47 93 11 1 (8:30am - 5:30pm)
Monaco: +377 97 97 58 00 (9/12am - 2/5pm)
Switzerland: Geneva +41 22 819 02 02
& Zurich +41 44 218 56 11 (8:30am - 5:30pm)

You would like to contact us about the protection of your personal data?

Please contact the Data Protection Officer of Societe Generale Private Banking France by sending an email to the following address: protectiondesdonnees@societegenerale.fr.

Please contact the Data Protection Officer of Societe Generale Luxembourg by sending an email to the following address: lux.dpooffice@socgen.com.

For customers residing in Italy, please contact BDO, the external provider in charge of Data Protection, by sending an email to the following address: lux.dpooffice-branch-IT@socgen.com

Please contact the Data Protection Officer of Societe Generale Private Banking Monaco by sending an email to the following address: list.mon-privmonaco-dpo@socgen.com

Please contact the Data Protection Officer of Societe Generale Private Banking Switzerland by sending an email to the following address : ch-dataprotection@socgen.com

You need to make a claim?

Societe Generale Private Banking aims to provide you with the best possible quality of service. However, difficulties may sometimes arise in the operation of your account or in the use of the services made available to you.

Your private banker  is your privileged contact to receive and process your claim.

 If you disagree with or do not get a response from your advisor, you can send your claim to the direction  of Societe Generale Private Banking France by email to the following address: FR-SGPB-Relations-Clients@socgen.com or by mail to: 

Société Générale Private Banking France
29 boulevard Haussmann CS 614
75421 Paris Cedex 9

Societe Generale Private Banking France undertakes to acknowledge receipt of your claim within 10 (ten) working days from the date it is sent and to provide you with a response within 2 (two) months from the same date. If we are unable to meet this 2 (two) month deadline, you will be informed by letter.

In the event of disagreement with the bank  or of a lack of response from us within 2 (two) months of sending your first written claim, or within 15 (fifteen) working days for a claim about a payment service, you may refer the matter free of charge, depending on the nature of your claim, to:  

 

The Consumer Ombudsman at the FBF

The Consumer Ombudsman at the Fédération Bancaire Française (FBF – French Banking Federation) is competent for disputes relating to services provided and contracts concluded in the field of banking operations (e.g. management of deposit accounts, credit operations, payment services etc.), investment services, financial instruments and savings products, as well as the marketing of insurance contracts.

The FBF Ombudsman will reply directly to you within 90 (ninety) days from the date on which she/he receives all the documents on which the request is based. In the event of a complex dispute, this period may be extended. The FBF Ombudsman will formulate a reasoned position and submit it to both parties for approval.

The FBF Ombudsman can be contacted on the following website: www.lemediateur.fbf.fr or by mail at:

Le Médiateur de la Fédération Bancaire Française
CS 151
75422 Paris CEDEX 09

 

The Ombudsman of the AMF

The Ombudsman of the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF - French Financial Markets Authority) is also competent for disputes relating to investment services, financial instruments and financial savings products.

For this type of dispute, as a consumer customer, you have therefore a choice between the FBF Ombudsman and the AMF Ombudsman. Once you have chosen one of these two ombudsmen, you can no longer refer the same dispute to the other ombudsman.

The AMF Ombudsman can be contacted on the AMF website: www.amf-france.org/fr/le-mediateur or by mail at:

Médiateur de l'AMF, Autorité des Marchés Financiers
17 place de la Bourse
75082 PARIS CEDEX 02
FRANCE


The Insurance Ombudsman

The Insurance Ombudsman is competent for disputes concerning the subscription, application or interpretation of insurance contracts.

The Insurance Ombudsman can be contacted using the contact details that must be mentioned in your insurance contract.

To ensure that your requests are handled effectively, any claim addressed to Societe Generale Luxembourg should be sent to:

Private banking Claims department
11, Avenue Emile Reuter
L-2420 Luxembourg

Or by email to clienteleprivee.sglux@socgen.com and for customers residing in Italy at societegenerale@unapec.it

The Bank will acknowledge your request within 10 working days and provide a response to your claim within 30 working days of receipt. If your request requires additional processing time (e.g. if it involves complex research), the Bank will inform you of this situation within the same 30-working day timeframe.

In the event that the response you receive does not meet your expectations, we suggest the following:

Initially, you may wish to contact the Societe Generale Luxembourg Division responsible for handling claims, at the following address:

Corporate Secretariat of Societe Generale Luxembourg
11, Avenue Emile Reuter
L-2420 Luxembourg

If the response from the Division responsible for claims does not resolve the claim, you may wish to contact Societe Generale Luxembourg's supervisory authority, the “Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier”/“CSSF” (Luxembourg Financial Sector Supervisory Commission):

By mail: 283, Route d’Arlon L-1150 Luxembourg
By email:
direction@cssf.lu

Any claim addressed to Societe Generale Private Banking Monaco should be sent by e-mail to the following address: servicequalite.privmonaco@socgen.com or by mail to our dedicated department: 

Societe Generale Private Banking Monaco
Middle Office – Service Réclamation 
11 avenue de Grande Bretagne
98000 Monaco

The Bank will acknowledge your request within 2 working days after receipt and provide a response to your claim within a maximum of 30 working days of receipt. If your request requires additional processing time (e.g. if it involves complex researches…), the Bank will inform you of this situation within the same 30-working day timeframe. 

In the event that the response you receive does not meet your expectations, we suggest to contact the Societe Generale Private Banking Direction that handles the claims by mail at the following address: 

Societe Generale Private Banking Monaco
Secrétariat Général
11 avenue de Grande Bretagne 
98000 Monaco

Any claim addressed to the Bank can be sent by email to:

sgpb-reclamations.ch@socgen.com
 

Clients may also contact the Swiss Banking Ombudsman: 

www.bankingombudsman.ch

 

Transferring and donating art

The content of this article is intended for clients of French nationality whose tax residence is in France.

What are the options for transferring or donating art? What are the legal statuses? And what are the questions and details to be taken into consideration? Laurent Issaurat, our Private Bank’s Head of Art Banking Services, took these questions to Marceau Clermon, who is Notary-in-Partnership at Fidnot.
Laurent Issaurat: You deal with a number of art collectors and owners. In some instances, holding art is well documented. But this is not always the case. What would be your advice?

 Marceau Clermon: Many owners of collectibles think that possession alone gives legal title and the protection that goes with it. The reality is far more complex. Paradoxically, while they may have the essential documentation attesting to an item’s authenticity, and which is used for its valuation, they often have no proof of ownership. Since statements made in an estate, donations or distributions do not constitute title(1), beneficiaries may claim ownership of works of art by taking action to establish title, which is made easier when the possessor has no documented evidence. Our advice would be, at the very least, to obtain statements of ownership from all parties, official reports from the bailiff, or to declare these statements in registered deeds.

Laurent Issaurat: Are works of art in the same category as other moveable goods?

Marceau Clermon: This is where we need to be careful. As counter-intuitive as it seems, works of art and collectibles are not always classified as “moveable goods”. Some works may form part of a building - built-in sculptures and mosaics, like the INVADER tiles decorating the walls of numerous capitals, come to mind. In the French Civil Code, there is some overlap in the categories of the “furnishing” moveable goods ("meubles meublants") that embellish our homes: not all works of art are included in this category; and not all moveable goods are works of art. Article 534 of the French Civil Code expressly excludes “collections of pictures which may be in galleries or private rooms” from the "furnishing" moveable goods category. Barring this exclusion, works of art can legally fall in this category, irrespective their value. These overlaps can result in competing interests. Case in point: the surviving spouse of an estate very often has right of use of this particular kind of moveable object, i.e. works of art, and can also enjoy “usufruct” (life use) or ownership rights. The object(s) therefore cannot be transferred without the spouse’s approval.

Laurent Issaurat: How can I transfer art to my children or grandchildren? Is it possible to legally separate the attributes of ownership by distinguishing bare ownership from right of use?

Marceau Clermon: That is the right strategy. It is possible to donate ownership or bare ownership under the usual legal and fiscal conditions. This ensures an indisputable title of property so that if the work is sold at a later stage it will meet the conditions for a capital gains tax exemption for the duration of the holding period. A very common practice in France today is "donation-partage". Under this device, donors in their lifetime can also distribute their estate down the generations for the purpose of reincorporation ("donation-partage trans-générationnelle-réincorporative"). This means that after 15 years of registering the donation, the works of art will “roll” from the initial donor’s children, to their children’s children, thereby keeping the assets in the family and reducing the tax cost to partition duties of 2.5%.

Laurent Issaurat: What are the benefits of "donation-partage" over gifts from hand to hand or traditional gifts? You would think these easy ways of passing down art.

Marceau Clermon: From a legal and fiscal standpoint, traditional gifts(2) have the disadvantage of being hard to trace. No proof means no rights if there is an objection. It is the cause of many family disputes: again, possession alone does not demonstrate ownership. Gifts from hand to hand(3) are generally recognised for tax purposes. But this in itself does not prove the reality of the donation, given that the declaration is made only by the receiver of the gift. We therefore recommend obtaining documentation from the donor stating that the gift is not a loan but a donation, thus ruling out any grounds for dispute. A notarial deed is invaluable in this respect: it expresses the intention of making a gift and gives an exact description of the object. Where there are many inheritors, "donation-partage" also offers the security of not having to “rebalance” the value of assets upon the death of the donor. A sound precaution given how volatile the value of art can be.

Laurent Issaurat: Could transferring art to a company be another option?

Marceau Clermon: Doing so used to be a tax constraint, as privately-held works of art were exempted from wealth tax while company shares holding art were not. For collectors, placing works of art in a company opens up new opportunities in terms of holding and transferring art. It is also a worthy pursuit for living artists who want to organise their estate and even benefit from the advantages of the Dutreil Lawfor transferring businesses. Today some collectors set up structures of varying sophistication, coupled with a management trust so as to ringfence or “give sanctuary to” a collection. This provides almost as much security as the Anglo-Saxon trusts used by international collectors, with the proviso that “transfer trusts” are not permitted under French law which, naturally, presents a major hurdle.

Laurent Issaurat: How are art assets valued during a succession?

Marceau Clermon: The market value of the asset must be used. It can be determined by the prices seen at auction sales in the two years following death, by estimates made by an auctioneer as part of a notarised inventory, or by the individual value of objects as established in insurance policies. While works of art can be counted as "furnishing moveable goods", the insurance flat-rate option for moveable goods should not lead to confusion: it is not a means of optimisation. The French tax code does allow the submission of contrary evidence to tax authorities. But while it can be demonstrated that a masterpiece painting is legally part of the furniture and furnishings of a home, the use of the flat rate should be avoided if, from a tax perspective, the moveable assets are worth more than 5% of the total estate value.

Interested to know more? Your private banking advisor can assess your situation and propose a tailormade solution.

 


(1) Such documentation can, however, constitute prima facie evidence as well as presumption of lawful possession.

(2) A traditional gift falls under social or family custom which justifies the giving of gifts for an event or occasion: weddings, births, christenings and first religious sacraments, the donee’s name day or birthday, wedding anniversary, regular family gatherings, Christmas, passing an exam or an entrance exam, etc. It must be of a reasonable value, i.e. proportionate to the donor’s financial situation. Given its modest value, it is not taxable.

(3) A gift from hand to hand is a donation inter vivos of tangible personal property. The declaration of gifts from hand to hand is compulsory.


The content provided on this page is for informational purposes only and is not contractually binding. It is not intended to provide investment advice or any other investment service and does not constitute a personal recommendation, advice, or an offer from Societe Generale Private Banking to purchase, sell or subscribe to investment services and/or financial products.

The information presented above shall not be considered legal, tax or accounting advice. The materials contained therein are for illustrative purposes only and designed to provide the reader with information that may be of use in making decisions. Under no circumstances should it be construed as a personalised recommendation. Readers should consider it neither as an investment recommendation, nor legal, accounting, or tax advice. All wealth management strategies under consideration will need to be approved by your usual legal and tax advisers before implementation.

This document is prepared using sources that Societe Generale Private Banking considers to be reliable and accurate at the time of its creation. Any and all information contained in this document may be amended without prior notice. In no event shall any Societe Generale Private Banking entity be held liable for any decision made by an investor on the basis of this information.

The contents of this page may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without Societe Generale Private Banking's prior written consent. This document may not be disseminated in the US or to a US resident in any form whatsoever.

Before subscribing to any investment service or financial product, potential investors must read all of the information contained in the detailed documentation on the service or product being considered (prospectus, regulations, "Key Investor Information Document", Term Sheet, and contractual terms of the investment service), paying particular attention to that concerning the risks associated with the service or product.

Laurent Issaurat