In the Riotoral market, the theme is still in conversations. The only banking agency in this village of Haute-Loire definitely closed at the end of July, lamenting elected officials, inhabitants and merchants. The Credit Agricole Agency in this town of 1,200 souls, south of Saint-Etienne, has definitely lowered the curtain. This summer, 27 other agencies in this bank group closed in rural areas of Loira and Haute-Loire.
A disconnection that has affected the entire national territory for almost 20 years and refers to all bank establishments. Between 2006 and 2023, the number of agencies in France fell 15%, from 39,500 to 33,500 according to the European Central Bank (ECB). With the generalization of electronic payment, the trend is also the same for automatic ticket distributors, of which 1,500 were eliminated in 2024, according to the banker of France.
PUBLIC PETITIONS AND MEETINGS
In Riotoral, the Credit Agricole agency only opened two mornings per week, but now the withdrawal of the species “for the elderly, is complicated, because they do not have means of transport”, to eliminate another place, it is worried about Stéphane Billard, who sells fruits and vegetables in the market. Guy Peyrard, the mayor of Riotoral, claims to fight again “to keep the automatic ticket distributor”, “an essential service for the population,” he judges.
Public meetings, requests, letters … in Loira and Haut-Loire, elected officials and inhabitants of the municipalities interested in the protested closures. There was “an uprising of shields of the mayors who were not warned by anticipation (…) that were presented to the act consummated during the first half of July,” says Bernard Souvignet, president of the Association of Mayors of France (AMF) for Haute-Loire.
“Everyone returns that this will have a great impact on merchants because the money that is withdrawn in their municipality is spent mainly in the place. And if people have to retire elsewhere, they will tend to spend money on these other municipalities,” he explains.
“I will close my account”
In the Ricamarie (Loira), in the suburbs of Stéphanoise, the closure of the Agency Agricole “causes a feeling of abandonment,” according to Cyrille Bonnefoy, the mayor of this city of 8,000 inhabitants, “already socially marked, with disqualkers that have low mobility.” A client, Valérie Kaleta-Bruyère, 56, says that she is “terribly disappointed by the method used by the bank that the agency had already closed and moved to Catimini’s furniture for several months.”
The Chief of the Credit Agricole Loire/Haute-Loire Agencies Network, Antoine Paliard believes that “the group of advisors to the smallest agencies will allow them to give clients more time.”
Instead of maintaining about twenty DAB as the elected officials claim, the bank proposes to extend the “CA relay”, which offer its customers the possibility of removing some liquid in the associated stores. He adds that three trucks of trucks led by bank advisors also carry out weekly tours in isolated municipalities, which allows the same operations to be carried out in an agency.
In Montagny, a town of 1,100 inhabitants in Loira, Claudine Burnichon, 43, manages a supermarket and says he is “satisfied” of also transmitting CA for seven years “, especially for the benefit of a customer of regular clients.” “The remuneration provided by the bank (0.84 euros per operation, note of the editor) is not high, but this generally compensates the commissions” linked to the use of the electronic payment terminal (TPE). “And that reduces the species of species that I will do in Roanne,” he adds.
Source: BFM TV
