Soon the end of sending checkbooks by La Poste in favor of withdrawal from an agency? According to the Échos this Thursday, “the Bank of France wants to stop sending checkbooks by mail”: in order to limit fraud. An interpretation considered a little excessive according to the governor of the French central bank, François Villeroy de Galhau, interviewed on this subject on the set of France 2 this Thursday morning, reports Le Figaro.
“What is true is that we are working with banks to reduce the risks of check fraud, because it is the most defrauded payment instrument,” he clarified. “What we want, “It’s an alternative, not a ban. That customers can collect their checkbook free of charge from the branch and not be forced to simply send it by mail, which presents more risks.”
According to the latest annual report from the Observatory for the Security of Means of Payment (OSMP) of the Banque de France, although the check fraud rate fell in 2022 (to 0.073% compared to 0.079% in 2021), “it still remains the highest among the different means of payment”, points out Le Figaro.
But why this decision by the Bank of France? The latter has in fact observed a greater sending of checks by banks via La Poste. “After the crisis linked to Covid-19 and the related periods of confinement, it appeared that users increasingly favored receiving the checkbook at home,” noted the latest OSMP report, estimating “that approximately two thirds of checkbooks are sent by post in different forms (single letter, followed letter, registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt).
In this report, published in July 2023, the Banque de France already asked banks to give their customers the choice. “Customers must at all times be able to withdraw their checkbook free of charge from a branch, at least for customers of a banking establishment with a network of branches.” A free far from always being guaranteed, according to an article from MoneyVox carried out in December 2022, which shows in particular that a third of the banks listed charge for sending a checkbook to your home in a single envelope, at an average rate of 2.01 euros.