Like every year, or almost, half of the banks will update their banking rates on January 1. Concentrated on certain products and services, the price increases therefore concern a specific type of customer. Are you one of them?
In 2021, there are going to be losers and winners from bank rate inflation. Among the winners: the clients of Socit Gnrale which has, in fact, decided to freeze its prices in 2021. Due to the health and economic crisis, Crdit Mutuel Alliance Fdrale has also postponed its price update scheduled for July 2020. It has not yet been rescheduled. Conversely, nearly half of the 126 banks that MoneyVox monitors will review their rates at the start of 2021. This is particularly the case with La Banque Postale, which is making some minor changes. But this initiative is mainly managed by regional banks of Crdit Agricole, Banque Populaire and Caisse dEpargne.
On a daily basis, this price update will not be without consequences on your bank charges, especially if you tend to withdraw money frequently from the ATM and call an advisor for your banking operations or if you plan to renew your bank card with systematic authorization.
Customers have pargns
To assess how much your bill is likely to weigh down, the drafting has poked its nose into the new price plates from the banks. We have calculated for 4 typical profiles the surcharge induced by the changes in the tariff scales known on December 15, 2020 (see our methodology at the bottom of the article). Conclusion: the increases are, like last year, very disparate depending on the use of the account and the products and services subscribed. Average inflation thus rises to 1% for premium customers, who travel a lot and have a Visa Infinite or a World Elite Mastercard. This increase can be explained in particular by the increase in the premium for the very high-end bank card. Some brands do not go with the back of the spoon: the World Elite Mastercard to Crdit Agricole Normandie-Seine goes from 259euros to 300euros per year. At Bred, which belongs to the Banque Populaire network, as at Crdit Agricole dAquitaine, its price jumped by 10 euros respectively 310 and 320 euros.
The carefree profile preserved
As for the premium profile, the clientele often discovered and which multiplies the banking operations, baptized carefree should not, either, see its bank charges soar. It must be said that with a bill that already exceeds 525 euros per year, the bill is already very heavy. Vigilance, however, for those who are ready to renew their bank card systematic authorization. The BPCE group brands tend to end the marketing of their Visa Electron (or V-Pay). It is replaced by a card called quasi-systematic authorization, which, good news, works in car parks and pages, but which, bad news, costs the same price as a classic card with immediate debit. This new balance control card costs, for example, 55 euros per year for the Banque de Savoie, against 36 euros previously for the Visa Electron.
The customer saves touch
For customers with an economical profile, the increase in costs will however be more severe: +3% with an average annual bill of 84 euros. For this clientele, who mainly has a Mastercard or a Visa Classic with a remote banking subscription, the inflation comes from switching to ATMs in competing banks (see below) and the usual increase of 0.50 2 euros in the annual fee. of his card.
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The standard customer heavily penalized
You are neither very often discovered, nor very easy, nor very careful about the prices and the quantity of banking products subscribed? In summary, you do not recognize yourself in these 3 somewhat caricatured profiles! This does not mean, however, that you are immune to increases. On the contrary, according to our estimates, our standard user – he has a classic Visa or Mastercard card with immediate debit, a subscription to manage his remote account, in particular makes 4 withdrawals per month from an ATM not belonging to his bank and he occasionally has a slight overdraft will experience a 4% increase in bank charges. While a standard user, one of the brands that will change its prices, has spent on average 174 euros in 2020, he will pay 179 euros in bank charges next year.
At the origin of this increase: the tightening of the tariffs of banal banking operations but which cost the bank money, as withdrawals from distributors of competing brands displaced withdrawals calls. A quarter of the new wafers plan either to increase the unit price of withdrawals in the euro zone, or to limit the number of free operations per month. Balance sheet: the standard of 1 euro per switch to ATM after 3 or 4 free monthly withdrawals is called into question. This is the case, for example, with the Banque Populaire Rives de Paris, the Caisse d’Epargne Bretagne Pays de Loire or even the Crdits Agricoles de Lorraine, Ille-et-Vilaine and Guadeloupe, where only 2 transactions will become free in 2021, compared to 3 previously. . The Banques Populaires Val de France, Bourgogne Franche-Comt and Occitane as well as the Caisse d’Epargne de Bourgogne Franche-Comt increase the price of paid withdrawals by 10 to 25 cents.
Annual fees in 2021 | 2020-2021 variation | |
---|---|---|
Credit Agricole Pyrnes Gascogne | 168 | 17% |
Credit Agricole Guadeloupe | 202 | 14% |
Credit Agricole Lorraine | 181 | 9% |
Caisse d’Epargne Auvergne et Limousin | 181 | 8% |
Caisse d’Epargne Bretagne Pays de Loire | 197 | 7% |
Agricultural Credit Ille-et-Vilaine | 167 | 7% |
Banque Populaire Rives de Paris | 222 | 6% |
BRED Banque Populaire Guadeloupe | 220 | 5% |
BRED Banque Populaire | 220 | 4% |
Credit Agricole Loire Haute-Loire | 180 | 3% |
Credit Agricole Ctes d’Armor | 168 | 3% |
Banque Populaire Occitane | 186 | 3% |
Caisse d’Epargne Bourgogne Franche-Comt | 180 | 2% |
Banque Populaire Auvergne Rhne Alpes | 189 | 2% |
Chalus Bank | 182 | 2% |
Banque Populaire Bourgogne Franche-Comt | 193 | 1% |
Banque Populaire Val de France | 194 | 1% |
Caisse d’Epargne Loire Drme Ardche | 150 | 1% |
Caisse d’Epargne Loire-Center | 167 | 1% |
Caisse d’Epargne Rhne Alpes | 156 | 1% |
Calculations based on 2021 platelets known as of December 15, 2020
This tightening concerns people who hold a traditional bank card. In principle, Visa Premier, Gold Mastercard and other Visa Infinite continue to allow unlimited free withdrawals from French and European ATMs.
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This development is not new. It is reinforced by the scales of 2021 and facilitated by the scarcity of the use of coins and banknotes. The increase in withdrawal fees is probably not unrelated to the increase in the contactless payment limit. [Il est pass de 30 50euros en mai, ndlr] and the banks’ desire to make their impressive distributor networks profitable. The use of cash is expected to decline further in the years to come, with banks accompanying this trend. And then, banks want to continue to encourage their customers to withdraw from their ATMs, underlines Laurent Trichet, founder of the research firm Smaphore Conseil.
To privilege payments by credit card, banks are also tightening the price of sending the checkbook home. In a context of pressure on bank margins, this also allows them to pass on to the customer the cost of the human interventions sometimes necessary for their processing. Our standard profile is sent a checkbook every two years. Result, if he is a customer of the Caisse dEpargne dAuvergne et du Limousin, his recommended delivery will cost him 7 euros in 2021 excluding postage, against 3 euros in 2020. At Crdit Agricole Loire-Haute Loire, this operation will increase from 6.10 euros, postage included, 8,15euros. This regional fund specifies that it is possible, on request, to send your checkbook in a single fold. In this case, no increase, the cost will remain 1.50 euros.
If it is possible to avoid paying check delivery fees (by collecting it at a branch or by dispensing with a check) or withdrawal fees by choosing the right distributor or by limiting ATM calls, on the other hand, it is more complicated not to pay account maintenance fees. Banking is a service and it has to be paid for. Thus, account maintenance fees reflect the price of day-to-day management and the price of the increasing enrichment of interfaces (fixed or mobile) in terms of functionality, underlines Laurent Trichet.
Moreover, in 2021, their increase in several mutual banks also partly explains the inflation of bank charges for our standard client. At the Bred, account maintenance fees will thus drop from 24 to 30 euros per year. Worse still, Crdit Agricole Pyrnes Gascogne, which until then did not indicate this tariff line, will now retain 24 euros per year from its customers. The good news is that the holders of a dial account, the name of the group of services offered by the Crdit Agricole network, are exempt from these account maintenance fees. La Bred, too, has decided not to pass this increase on to the price of its main offer from the Bred Access group, which starts at 62 euros per year.
This strategy aims in particular to make the packages more competitive compared to the subscription to the card of banking products. Moreover, banks are increasingly offering low-cost packages with vocal names – Eko, Globe-Trotter, LCL Essentiel, Kapsul or even Enjoy – to attract and retain customers with tight budgets and limited needs.
Our methodology
To achieve these average changes, we used the 2021 price brochures already published by traditional banks, i.e. some 48% of retailers that we are monitoring as part of our comparisons. We retained the card prices and not the banking packages. Concretely, after studying these brochures, we compare the bank charges for 2020 with those for 2021 according to 4 profiles customers in order to best reflect the variation in tariffs for a person who makes the establishment his main bank. So there is the carefree customer frequently in the red and consuming a lot of banking products, the economical customer never discovered, the premium client who travels a lot and has a very high-end card, and the standard customer.
Concerning standard profile, central in this article, it is equipped with a basic international bank card, carries out its management operations from the internet and performs a few operations per year abroad. Here are the selected services: remote access subscription, account maintenance fees – annual cost, Visa or Mastercard immediate debit, 4 withdrawals per month in the euro zone, 3 withdrawals and 4 purchases per year in foreign currencies, 2 withdrawals per month, 1 transfer per month via internet, 1 cashier’s check every 5 years, 1 check every 2 years, 5 intervention commissions per year, 1 check rejection every 2 years, authorized overdraft of 100 euros, unauthorized overdraft of 500 euros, 1,500 euros on a Livret A and a passbook account.
You can find the details of this profile and the 3 others in our comparator of the cheapest banks.