BANK CHARGES. Bank charges refer to charges resulting from a service provided by the banking establishment, the operation of your account or banking incidents.

You may have noticed this when regularly checking your bank statement. Your bank charges you fees, depending on the services it provides you, but also depending on any incidents. While the fees essentially depend on the bank's pricing policy, certain types of fees are capped. This is the case for bank incident fees, which are limited for the most vulnerable customers. A decree made it possible to strengthen the capping system. The ceiling is now set at 25 euros per month. A customer will be "considered fragile from five banking incidents in a period of one month", and will have access to the capping of bank charges "for three months", explained the Minister of the Economy. "People in over-indebtedness will be considered fragile throughout the duration of registration in the repayment incident file," he added.

In France, there are several categories of bank charges, which may be linked to the completion of an operation, the provision of a service or a payment incident, for example. There are several of them, of which here is a non-exhaustive list:

The government has set up a site for comparing bank rates charged in France, depending on the institution: https://www.tarifs-bancaires.gouv.fr/. To use it, you must enter your department, as well as the various bank charges you wish to compare (deferred debit payment card, immediate debit, account maintenance fees, etc.). Depending on what you have previously selected, you will then obtain a table in which the various banking establishments in the department appear, and the rates charged, and whether these are up or down.

In France, only bank incident costs are capped for so-called fragile customers who have subscribed to a specific offer with their bank. In detail, the persons concerned are those who are registered in the Banque de France's central check file for more than 3 months, due to an unpaid check, and who have been declared inadmissible to the over-indebtedness procedure. This special offer costs a maximum of 3 euros per month. Since July 1, 2019, a cap has come into force for these customers: their banking incident fees cannot exceed 20 euros per month and 200 euros per year. This ceiling is raised on November 1, 2020, to 25 euros per month.

The conditions of access to this offer have also been reviewed. A customer is now considered fragile from the fifth banking incident in a month. He will then have access to this specific offer for three months. Not sure which fee types are affected? Here is a list: