The magazine 60 million consumers and the National Union of Family Associations on Thursday accused banks of not keeping certain commitments vis-à-vis customers said fragile, after a test with a hundred people challenged however by the French banking federation.
A "damning" record . As a result of the movement of "yellow vests", the banks committed in December 2018, at the request of the President of the Republic, to cap the cost of banking incidents to 25 euros monthly for all fragile customers. But the "ceiling is not set up for the vast majority of customers drowned under the costs for incidents," writes 60 million consumers, deeming this assessment "overwhelming". The French Banking Federation reacted in a statement sent to AFP stating that "in September and December 2018, the banks have made strong commitments to financially fragile customers" and ensuring that "these commitments are kept". "It is more than 600 million euros per year of purchasing power that have been reinjected with the French, especially under the cap on payment incident expenses," she said.
"Since February 1, 2019, the 3.4 million financially fragile clients, as defined by the law, benefit from a monthly ceiling of their incident costs.This has already enabled more than a million people to be fragile. financially, who have experienced incidents of payments, to see their incident costs reduced in the first half of 2019 ", still assures the federation.
Objective criteria to detect fragile customers . To perform their test, the magazine 60 million consumers and the National Union of Family Associations asked 104 customers "in great difficulty" to meet their advisor in order to obtain "a solution to their situation". Among these people, 13 are banned banks, 23 over-indebted and 68 receive from 1,000 to 1,800 euros per month and incur incident charges of more than 40 euros per month for three months. "78% of bank bans and over-indebtedness have no ceiling while these people should automatically qualify," says the review. In the third category, 91% of customers also do not benefit from the cap.
Detection of fragile clients meets both objective regulatory criteria - such as three-month recurring payment incidents or debt distress proceedings - and other criteria left to the discretion of banks - such as taking into account the amount of disposable income and the level of expenditure.