EUROPE 1 AND YOU – Haute-Garonne: this mayor’s solution to fight against banking desertification
Benjamin Peter, edited by Julien Moreau
Every day, Europe 1 looks at an idea or a problem in your daily life. In Bessières, in Haute-Garonne, a small town of 4,000 inhabitants, the town hall has chosen to install an ATM to replace those which had disappeared with the relocation of bank branches in recent years.
To fight against banking desertification, the mayor of Bessières, in Haute-Garonne, decided to buy an ATM. According to the Banque de France, 1,000 ATMs disappear every year. “We had the Caisse d’Epargne and the Crédit Agricole which were there and all of a sudden took everything away from us. We had to find a solution”, reports Régine who has just withdrawn a few banknotes from this new municipal distributor. She likes to use cash for her daily shopping.
“It was a disaster”
“You can pay with the card, the contactless up to 50 euros, I do it too. But there, at the market, if you buy vegetables, fruits, I pay in cash”, she adds at the microphone of Europe 1. For traders too, the departure of the banks was badly experienced. Aline, who runs a haberdashery close to the town hall, has seen the consequences on her turnover.
“It was a disaster. People were running out of cash to do shopping on baskets of less than 20 euros. The elderly were not really used to using the bank card and almost no one has checks anymore so it ‘was a shortfall for downtown merchants,’ says Aline at the microphone of Europe 1.
“There is a resurgence of activity in our city center”
Mayor Cédric Maurel had this distributor installed, managed by a private company, which is more suited to the habits of the inhabitants. “It’s not just generations Z who are used to contactless payment or connected objects with a phone, a ring or a watch. There is still this need, especially for the elderly who live in centers – city and who find it difficult to move outside. There is a resurgence of activity in our city center thanks to the installation of this ATM”, testifies the mayor of the city at the microphone of Europe 1. A choice that has a cost. A little over 50,000 euros for five years, but the more it is used, the less it will cost the city.
Fr
