The respective market shares of the three banking models offered to the French (network banking, online banking and nobanking) have been stable since 2021, notes the 2023 edition of the Colombus Consulting study on the banking models of tomorrow. So, have traditional banks won the game?
Since the beginning of the century, two models have clashed. On the one hand, the traditional bank, with its agencies, its dedicated advisors and its numerous services, but generally for a fee; on the other remote bankingby telephone, online or on mobile, with its narrow catalog, its efficient savings products and above all its moderate fees.
Between the two models, some observers have announced a death struggle: only one should remain. Since the 2010s, in most countries, the number of bank branches has fallen, sometimes suddenly. At the same time, the number of online banks, without physical points of sale, tends to increase.
Better still, in the 2010s, nobanks were born, natively designed for digital and particularly for mobile, which has become the main channel of interaction between customers and their bank. Extra-bank players, particularly from the technology sector, are also beginning to take an interest in activities traditionally linked to banking – payments, credits, savings – and are promising to outmode the old banks.
A quarter of a century after the start of the confrontation, where are we? In its annual study devoted to the banking services and models of tomorrow (1)Colombus Consulting makes an observation: positions now seem fixed, the advantage of the traditional banking model. In 2023, the banking landscape has stabilized, the study details. Online banks and no-banks have stopped taking market share from traditional banks which retain the majority of customers.
The numbers are pretty clear. Since 2021 and the Covid pandemic, which offered a big boost to digital players, almost nothing has changed: 93% of French people are customers of a traditional bank, 18% of an online bank and 8% of a nobank.
A favorable situation for the traditional model
So, is the banking model war over? And did the branch network banks win? It’s probably more complex than that.
One thing is certain: the recent sequencedespite high inflation and rising rates, was rather favorable to the traditional model. The difficulty in accessing credit and questions about the best way to allocate one’s savings to take advantage of the rise in rates have rather encouraged customers to turn to established establishments, analyzes Guillaume Larmaraud, partner in the banking sector at Colombus Consulting.
In the opposite camp, the forces are, in fact, tending to diminish. Several players – ING, Orange Bank, Aumax for me, perhaps Ma French Bank – have exhausted themselves, forced to not find a viable economic model.
But beware, those who stay emerge strengthened. BoursoBank, in particular, has managed to reach a critical size, being able to both acquire many customers and retain them, notes Guillaume Larmaraud, who also cites the British nobank Revolut, whose market share in France has increased significantly. , going from 0.6% in 2021 to almost 2.5% in 2023, and Lydia (1.5%).
Revolut: how the nobank wants to bend BoursoBank and Crdit Agricole
The game is therefore not over, especially since the desire for change remains strong: according to the survey commissioned by Colombus Consulting, 14% of those questioned intend to change banks in the coming year.
Online banking: comparison of offers
(1) Colombus Consulting, Retail banking, what will be the services and models of the bank of tomorrow?, April 2024