BNP Paribas, Société Générale and Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale will start pooling the 15,000 ATMs they manage in France from the fourth quarter of 2023.
From the end of the year, customers of BNP Paribas, Société Générale and Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédéral (which owns CIC) will be able to make savings by making cash withdrawals. These three major networks will pool the 15,000 ATMs they manage in France. This represents a third of the park (47,853 ATMs). 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 customers will be reinforced “up to three times“. A BNP Paribas customer will thus have free access to both the ATM of his bank, but also to those of Société Générale and Crédit Mutuel (excluding Arkea). In addition, no ATM should be closed in rural and isolated areas, assured these banks during the presentation of the initial project in 2021.
Fee increase for out-of-network withdrawal
The new distributors, renamed to the brand “Cash Services“, will allow customers of the three brands not only to make free withdrawals, but also to carry out simple banking operations such as depositing cash or checks, consulting accounts or even printing an identity statement. banking (RIB). “This is good news for everyone. In particular, residents of rural areas who will have fewer kilometers to travel to find a distributor where they will not pay fees “says Basile Duval, spokesperson for the comparator Panorabanques. In fact, the establishments invoice the moved withdrawals, that is to say made outside a distributor of its banking network. These rates have increased significantly in recent years and the number of free card withdrawals has fallen sharply (between 2 and 4 depending on the network). French people making four displaced withdrawals per month thus pay an average of 12.75 euros in fees per year, compared to 8.60 euros in 2021, according to a study by Panorabanques. This average price hides disparities and in some banks such as Société Générale or BNP Paribas for example, holders of high-end cards (Visa Premier or Infinite) do not pay inappropriate withdrawals.
Cash decline
The objective of BNP Paribas, Société Générale and Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale is first of all to adapt to the decline in the use of cash, which has accelerated with the health crisis. Pooling withdrawal points will also, and above all, reduce the management costs of ATMs that are expensive to maintain (between 25,000 and 32,000 euros per year per ATM).