In the coming days, a decree should be published to try to limit bank charges in the event of payment incidents for families in difficulty. On this occasion, the Bank of France pins two establishments, accused of not playing the game.
While the post-covid crisis risks further weakening those in difficulty, a decree must be published in the coming days to try to limit bank charges in the event of payment incidents.
Exactly, these are the sums taken by the banks to punish you for having exceeded your overdraft authorization or for having had a check rejected for lack of a funded account. So of course, the objective of a bank is not to be a philanthropic enterprise. But it is still almost seven billion euros which are thus levied each year. And it is often the poorest households who end up with payment incidents and therefore the largest sums to pay. They find themselves drawn into a spiral that prevents them from sticking their heads out of the water.
Hence this government decree, which has yet to be validated by the Council of State. The objective is to increase the number of customers entitled to a ceiling on bank charges. Ban on the bank to withdraw more than 25 euros per month for three months instead of just one month today. Above all, this device will be triggered much faster: as soon as the bank spots five payment incidents in the month, a refused check or an overdraft for example.
So who are the customers identified as fragile?
Well that's the whole problem. There is no rule common to all banks. Today everyone decides in the greatest secrecy where she puts the cursor. To give you an example, depending on which UFC to choose, a client is identified as fragile when he earns less than 1,900 euros per month at BNP Paribas and less than 1,497 euros at CIC. And when of course the account presents payment incidents. This is why all of them were supposed to, or at least demonstrate, before the end of June that they did have a house grid, and that they applied it.
Do we have the results?
Yes, and as a result, the Banque de France has pinned down two establishments that are not playing the game, which continue to charge bank charges for payment incidents to fragile customers. And it gives the names: "name and shame" operation for the BNP branch in Réunion and Crédit du nord. Conversely, you have good students like Credit Mutuelle who chose to go further and permanently eliminate the costs of banking incidents for its most fragile customers.
Consumer associations, however, denounce a decree which does not go far enough, and which above all will only be applied four months after its publication, in November, when the return to school risks being marked by a surge in precariousness.