Among the most inflationary items are “account maintenance fees, bank cards, withdrawals from ATMs,” points out the consumer association CLCV.
Your bank will have never cost you so much: this is the result of the annual study by the consumer association CLCV, which notes increases in bank rates that could exceed 5% this year. “Account maintenance fees, bank cards, ATM withdrawals are the items on which we have seen the most increases in the different networks” banking, write the authors of the study.
Account maintenance fees, the essential basis of banking services, are, for example, increasing significantly, by around 8%. In detail, the “small consumers”with a set of basic services will now pay 69.78 euros each year (+5.46%) and so-called average consumers (a couple with two cards with loss and theft insurance) will pay 134.94 euros (+5.29%).
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THE “heavy consumers” within the meaning of CLCV, that is to say two holders “high end” with a Gold or Premier card and making numerous withdrawals, are more relaxed with an increase of 3.88%, to 214.87 euros. These averages hide disparities. The retail banking market “remains, in fact, marked by significant price differences between brands, types of banking relationship, but also regions”highlighted the specialized site Moneyvox at the end of last year, which also took part in the price comparison exercise.
Beware of packages
The CLCV has analyzed the price scales in force on February 1, 2025 within around a hundred establishments, national networks and regional funds. According to her, Crédit Coopératif is competitive in all market segments, while LCL is competitive for small consumers and BNP Paribas for medium consumers. SG, a merger of the retail banking networks of Société Générale and Crédit du Nord, is among the most expensive banks across all profiles, as are, to a lesser extent, the Banques Populaires.
-The CLCV association also draws consumers’ attention to the bundled service offers, or packages, subscribed to by the majority of banking customers: these formulas “are not always advantageous compared to subscribing to identical products individually”she observes. The only bright spot this year is the new free instant transfers, which allow beneficiaries to receive the transferred money in less than 10 seconds.
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European regulations require, banks are in fact obliged to align the prices of instant transfers with those of traditional transfers, generally free and whose receipt times are measured in days. Online banks “can constitute a [option] interesting alternative for consumers who love long-distance relationships”further estimates the consumer association, “their offers are indeed competitive, provided that you pay attention to possible conditions of use”.
Bank incident fees
The average amounts calculated by CLCV do not include any banking incident fees. Intervention fees, direct debit, transfer or check rejections can cost up to 50 euros, with banks almost systematically aligning themselves with the maximum amount authorized…
For negligent customers or customers in financial difficulty, fees can run into hundreds of euros per year. According to the Panorabanques comparator, banking incident fees represent on average a third of total banking fees. The CLCV also denounces the fact that a minimum package is applied to the customer in the event of a bank overdraft, as soon as it occurs and however low it may be, a practice “entirely questionable (…) even if it is legal”.
