In all, 15,000 distributors are concerned throughout France.
BNP Paribas, Société Générale and Crédit Mutuel-CIC will start from the fourth quarter of 2023 to pool the approximately 15,000 ATMs they manage in France.
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Named “Cash services“, able to reduce the number of ATMs and operating costs, this project will make it possible to “sustainably perpetuate the self-service banking to which the French are attached, in both urban and rural areas“, underline the three banking groups in a joint press release published on Wednesday.
The project was announced in October 2021, but is taking place a little later than expected. In October 2022, the Deputy CEO of BNP Paribas, Thierry Laborde, responsible in particular for retail banking networks, mentioned a launch for early 2023. If they do not yet communicate on the number of distributors available when the project will be fully deployed , that is to say at the end of 2025, the banking establishments indicate that the offer for each of the customers will be reinforced “up to 3 times“.
The smallest of the networks concerned, CIC, comprising around 2,100 ATMs at the end of 2021, this suggests that there will remain at least 6,300 distributors.Cash Servicesover the entire territory, which would represent a sharp reduction compared to the existing total for the three groups combined. It is the urban areas where the four brands coexist – BNP Paribas, SG (the new brand resulting from the merger between Société Générale and Crédit du Nord), Crédit Mutuel and CIC – which are the main areas concerned by this pooling project. No ATM should be closed in rural and isolated areas, assured one of the three banks during the presentation of the initial project.
The distributors “Cash Services» will give the possibility to withdraw or deposit banknotes and coins, to deposit checks, to consult its balance or to edit an RIB. The banks “attempt to optimize the number of ATMs present in the territory” because “this is of course a cost center“, explained in November the director of fiduciary affairs of the Banque de France, Christophe Baud-Berthier. Fewer distributors means less costs for supplies, maintenance, the comings and goings of cash carriers…
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The total number of ATMs is already on a downward trend in France: the metropolis lost on average just over 2 per day in 2021. It had 47,853 ATMs at the end of that same year, according to the Banque de France, i.e. almost 10% less than at the end of 2018.
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