The outlines of the project to group the ATMs of BNP Paribas, Société Générale and Crédit Mutuel Federal Alliance, owner of the CIC network, are taking shape: around 7,000 withdrawal points will remain by the end of 2025, BNP Paribas announced on Thursday, compared to about 15,000 distributors today.
In urban areas
The figures given by the senior executive of the first French bank, also in charge of means of payment within the French Banking Federation (FBF), are comparable with the approximately 15,000 automatic teller machines (ATMs) currently in service. 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– that are mainly affected by this pooling.
No ATM should be closed in rural and isolated areas, assured one of the three banks during the presentation of the initial project in October 2021. “Cash Services” distributors will allow you to withdraw or deposit bills and coins, deposit checks, consult your balance or post a RIB.
47,853 ATMs in France
The pooling should limit so-called “shifted” withdrawals, these withdrawals made outside of your own bank’s dealers, billed to the customer based on the offer you have subscribed to and from a certain number. It also aims to cut banks’ operating costs: fewer distributors means less supply and maintenance costs, or even the comings and goings of cash-in-carriers.
The total number of distributors is already declining in France. The metropolis lost an average of just over two a day in 2021. It had 47,853 ATMs at the end of that same year, according to the Banque de France, that is, almost 10% less than at the end of 2018.
Source: BFM TV
