Year after year, the slow disappearance of cash machines continues. And this, despite the attachment of the French to cash. Published on Monday, the Banque de France’s annual study on access to cash points out that this trend continued last year: 46,249 ATMs dotted France at the end of 2022, or 1,604 less than twelve months earlier.
At the same time, around 1,000 new distribution points have been installed in shops, increasing from 25,949 at the end of 2021 to 26,956 a year later. If these access points contribute in particular “to the accessibility to cash in rural areas”, according to the Banque de France and Bercy, independent cash dispensers represent only a tiny part of the market (1.2%). Bank ATMs dominate, at 98.8%.
For the authorities, this network makes it possible to maintain “at a very good level accessibility to tickets in metropolitan France”. The fact remains that 56.3% of municipalities – or 19,632 – have no cash access point at the end of 2022, a stable level compared to 2021. And the inhabitants concerned depend on their car to withdraw cash: the journey time would be just over 9 minutes, according to the report.
Ultimately, more than 5.4 million French people aged 15 and over must therefore travel several kilometers to find tickets. A figure slightly down in one year, but which remains important, including politically: the “yellow vests” saw it as a symbol of the desertification of small towns, which are losing their local services. But the Banque de France and the Ministry of the Economy assure it, “accessibility to [tickets] constitutes one of the five pillars of the national cash management policy”.