In mainland France, more than half of the 34,841 municipalities (56.3%) do not have a cash access point, be it ATMs or private points in stores. An almost stable proportion compared to the end of 2021 (56.3%), according to Banque de France data published this Monday.
By contrast, 18.8% of French municipalities were equipped with at least one ATM at the end of 2022 and 24.8% did not have an ATM but did have at least one private access point. The truth is that the vast majority of the population aged 15 and over (79.2%) is less than five minutes by car from an ATM. A proportion that rises to 92.7% if we take private accesses into account and 99.9% if we extend the travel time to less than 15 minutes.
The number of delivery men is stable in small municipalities
At the end of 2022 there were a total of 73,205 cash access points (-0.8%), including 46,249 ATMs and 26,956 private access points in stores.
If the number of ATMs falls by 3.4% compared to December 2021 (8.6 ATMs per 10,000 inhabitants at the end of 2022, compared to 9.1 a year earlier), “it is noteworthy that the decrease in the number of ATMs is observed mainly in municipalities with more than 2,000 inhabitants” while this figure remains “perfectly stable” for those with less than 2.0 00 inhabitants (3,291), underlines the Banque de France. It even increases by 3.8% in municipalities with 0 to 499 inhabitants.
In addition, the total number of municipalities equipped with at least one ATM has gone from 6,548 at the end of 2021 to 6,563 at the end of 2022, that is, a very slight increase of 15 municipalities, the institution highlights.
Private hotspots come with restrictions
For its part, the number of private access points continues to increase (+3.9% in 2022) to represent 37% of the total offer in 2022, that is, 6 points more than in 2018. But the service is far from being the same as that offered by ATMs. In Crédit Agricole’s CA relays, for example, the withdrawal cannot exceed 100 euros, explains the bank’s website. Transactions are only accessible to customers of the network to which they belong and can only be made during the opening hours of the business in question, and not 24 hours a day like a classic ATM.
With a reduction of more than 12% since 2018, the downward trend in the number of ATMs should not be reversed with the project to group the ATMs of three major French banks, BNP Paribas, Crédit Mutuel Federal Alliance (which also owns the CIC network) and Société Générale. By the end of 2025, around 7,000 contact points will remain (which may have one or more automatic machines), compared to the nearly 15,000 distributors currently in service for these four networks.
Source: BFM TV
