Many banks have decided to eliminate some fees from their pricing policy.
50 cents here, 1 euro there… Small expense lines are regularly added to the bank statements of many French people, even if they are not linked to any purchase.These are actually the commissions collected by the bank, which are added to some already obligatory payments, such as that of the bank card. On average, more than 200 euros are collected by the structures in total every year. Good news: some of it will disappear very soon.
fewer and fewer French people do it, but the bank card is not just for paying. It also allows you to withdraw cash from an ATM, at any bank, anywhere in the country (and the world). In two clicks, you can easily fill your wallet with some banknotes from your account.
Except that this harmless operation is not always free. When you don’t withdraw money from an ATM owned by your bank, fees apply. Not the first, but sometimes the second time and, above all, after 3 or 4 withdrawals in the same month from other operators. This is equivalent to one withdrawal per week from a bank other than yours. If, on average, the French only make one or two withdrawals a month, a third of the population does not pay attention to the bank from which they withdraw money. Suffice it to say that over the course of the year the fees called “inappropriate withdrawals” can rise up to ten euros.
But all this will end soon and millions of French people will (almost) no longer have to choose the right bank to make a withdrawal, starting from 1 January 2025. BNP Paribas, société Générale, Crédit Mutuel and CIC are gradually establishing themselves in throughout France, the same distributor for the four brands.
Called “Cash Services”, they will allow customers of these businesses to make all the withdrawals they want from the ATMs installed in the branches, without fear of paying additional commissions, as indicated in the new pricing conditions of these businesses. Fees will simply continue to apply if multiple withdrawals are made at competitors, such as La Banque Postale, Crédit Agricole, Banque populaire or Caisse d’Epargne.
These new machines also offer other services such as depositing checks, cash, printing bank details, making transfers and accessing accounts. This grouping of banks is implemented as distributors are increasingly less profitable. Cash withdrawals are expected to steadily decline by 3% per year, leading to the elimination of 5,000 ATMs nationwide.