Rates Banking: France in the average - September 7, 2010
The cost of the banking relationship varies greatly from country to country in Europe, but there are reasons for this. That is the conclusion of the study in seven European countries by Bain & Company at the request of the French Banking Federation. Customers French banks not to complain: France is just below the European average in terms of pricing, with an index 95. While other countries are better off. This is the case of Germany (91), Belgium (80) and especially the Netherlands (70). But France is still cheaper than Italy (149), that Spain (107) or the United Kingdom (107).
Packages in the crosshairs
"In France, loans are not expensive. But the price of the bank on a daily basis is higher than the European average, "notes Nicolas Liolakis, partner at Bain.Overdraft fees, prices of the means of payment and other fees related to account maintenance proved higher in France and the Netherlands, Belgium and even in the UK. What grist to the mill consumer groups who denounce service pricing too expensive. The debate was launched this summer with the publication of the report Pauget-Constans. Emphasis was placed initially on the need to reduce the bill payment incidents for the frail. Already, Christine Lagarde, Minister of Economics who had commissioned the report, has asked banks to make efforts to improve transparency.
In the line of sight, the "packages", these packages collected monthly, considered more opaque and sometimes more expensive than the card billing.It was thanks to these packages, launched in 1990, that Credit Agricole, Societe Generale and BNP Paribas other muscles had reached the profitability of their retail banking, also undermined by fierce competition that 'they are engaged on credit. By comparison, British banks take, they, the bulk of their income on credit margins, very expensive in the UK. But the study emphasizes, as with any business service, attention to value for money: the French have, in particular, a mesh of branches among the densest in Europe combined with a high accessibility of the bank distance.
Elsewhere, it is rather one or the other. In the Netherlands, for example, the network, sparse, is complemented by a high rate of customers using Internet banking or telephone.In Spain, the opposite is true: customers enjoy the largest number of bank branches compared to the number of inhabitants and very little use of remote services.
Note also that France ranks well ahead in terms of financial counselors, both in their number and their training. In France, there are 176 client advisors for 100,000 customers, against 114 in the Netherlands and 99 in the United Kingdom. When 60% of advisors dedicated to French individuals claiming a degree, they are less than 20% in Spain.
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