Travel several kilometers to withdraw money. This reality is that of many French people, after the closure of hundreds of ATMs in France in recent years. Since the arrival of contactless payment, consumers are using less cash, but should we say goodbye to them?
The Covid-19 pandemic, which began in the spring of 2020, has democratized these simpler and faster payments, but also the dematerialization of credit cards. According to the Groupement des Cartes Bancaires, cash withdrawals even fell by 23% in 2020. The latest study by the European Central Bank (ECB) on this subject establishes the same observation. While in 2016 68% of purchases were paid for in cash, this figure fell to 59% in 2019. The bank card, for its part, went from 27% of payments to 35% in 2019. Be careful, if the French use bank cards more than before, nor do they pay for all their purchases with them. According to this study by the European Central Bank, below 10 euros, you continue to favor coins and notes at 83%. A figure that rises to 92% when it comes to a payment less than or equal to five euros.
Do the French not like cash as much as before? It’s more complicated than that. According to an Ifop survey for La Monnaie de Paris*, more than eight out of ten French people are attached to cash. 61% of those questioned then explained that they had “very confidence” in coins and banknotes, against 47% in bank cards. “Cash stands out for the confidentiality they guarantee to users, their reliability and their “humanity”, but also for their efficiency and their ease of use”, explained the polling institute at the time.
To be able to pay for purchases in cash, you still need to be able to withdraw money… This is not the case for everyone with the disappearance of ATMs. While more and more French people are having difficulty withdrawing money, three banks have just announced a big change for the start of 2023. Here is what will happen in the next few months.
*Quantitative study carried out in April 2021 online, with a sample of 1,001 individuals aged 18 and over, representative of the national population.
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