2023-06-26 17:49:22
“A French success. » The Governor of the Banque de France, François Villeroy de Galhau, does not mince his words when he addresses the subject of the reduction in over-indebtedness: file filings have fallen by 7% compared to 2021 – and by 50% compared to to 2015 – to reach 113,081 in 2022.
This is shown in the latest report for 2022 from the Observatory of Banking Inclusion (OIB), which monitors the banking practices of the population and in particular those of the most vulnerable, under the aegis of the Bank of France. “There is no complacency, but I have no hesitation in saying that we have one of the tightest over-indebtedness control systems in Europe”, welcomes François Villeroy de Galhau, who underlines the effectiveness of the Lagarde (2010) and Hamon (2014) laws.
This result is all the more surprising as the French economic context is not the best. Inflation (+5.1% over one year in May) is eating away at the purchasing power of the French, in particular that of food products, where the trend was at +15% in February and March. To complete this black table, the French economy is idling, with a 0.7% increase expected in 2023, against 2.5% in 2022.
An apparent contradiction difficult to explain
The Banque de France struggles to clearly explain the apparent contradiction. First, there are the positive effects of the drop in the unemployment rate, which reached 7.1% in the first quarter of 2023, i.e. the level of the first quarter of 2008 (7.2%) and in the second quarter of 1982 ( 7.1%).
In addition, potential over-indebtedness situations are “better detected upstream”social action budgets “at the top” and associations “more effective since the Covid-19 pandemic”. “We see that households are making more trade-offs in their consumption,” by choosing less expensive products, notes the Governor of the Banque de France. A qualitative survey will also be conducted by the Banque de France to better understand the reasons for this decline in over-indebtedness.
Especially since territorial inequalities persist. The sources of over-indebtedness are often “departments of former industrialization” in the north of the country, or on the outskirts of Île-de-France. The overseas territories, for their part, have a lower rate than in mainland France, except for Mayotte.
4.1 million French people were in a situation of financial fragility
The fact remains that 4.1 million French people were in a situation of financial fragility in 2022, or 6% of the population. While this figure is stable compared to 2021, it is up 14% compared to 2017. “There are two ways to understand this increase. Either we consider that there is a deterioration in the living conditions of the French, or that there is better identification of situations of fragility by the banks”, emphasizes François Villeroy de Galhau, which favors the second explanation.
The Banking Inclusion Observatory also looked at the number of customers who have subscribed to the fragile customer offer (OCF), which banks must offer since 2014 to any customer in a situation of financial fragility. It brings together a set of basic services: account management, payment card with systematic authorization, limitation to €25, or even €20 per month for incident costs, etc.
Nearly 830,000 people – i.e. one in five eligible customers – were beneficiaries at the end of 2022, i.e. 20% more than in 2021 and almost two and a half times more than in 2017.
Satisfaction with banks and Emmaüs France
“The French relationship banking model (…) demonstrates again this year, marked in particular by high inflation, its effectiveness in contributing to better banking and financial inclusion”, welcomes the director general of the French Banking Federation (FBF), Maya Atig.
Emmaus France, for its part, emphasizes the “quality of the work of the Banque de France teams and its commitment to financial inclusion issues” and calls on the government to simplify the various systems: fragile customer offer (OCF) and specific fragile customer offer, for people in great difficulty.
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The development of microcredit
To help the 4.1 million people in a situation of financial fragility, the Banque de France is counting in particular on the development of microcredit. Funding for « anyone in a situation of social and/or financial insecurity excluded from traditional bank loans», she explains. It was experimented for the first time in 1974, in Bangladesh, by Muhammad Yunus, economist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, to help poor populations with projects.
Since then, this system has successfully spread to many countries. In France, in 2022, 1.95 billion euros was lent in this respect, 13% more than in 2021. It can be of two types in France: professional (to help set up a business) or staff (often to buy a vehicle).
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