Right to a bank account – Implementation is simplified – News

A decree of March 11, 2022, applicable from June 13, makes the account right procedure easier and faster. The latter allows people without a bank account to ask the Banque de France to assign them an establishment.

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It is a fundamental right, enshrined in the law of 1984: any adult can request the opening of a bank account. Having an account is indeed essential today, in particular to collect one’s salary, social benefits, make certain payments, etc. To make this right effective, the 1984 law provided that if a consumer fails to open a bank account, the Banque de France will designate an establishment required to open a deposit account for him free of charge with basic banking services. Persons who are prohibited from banking, registered in the personal credit incident file or in the central check file, as well as all individuals in a situation of over-indebtedness, are particularly concerned. A decree of March 11, 2022 (1), applicable from June 13, simplifies this entire procedure. Because many individuals, generally the least favored or households who have already been on file following banking incidents (unpaid checks or rejected monthly credit payments), are still struggling to exercise this option.

No need to prove the bank’s refusal

The law leaves banks free to accept a client or not. But in case of refusal to open an account, the bank must notify the refusal to the consumer. It is this document which until now made it possible to assert its right to the account with the Bank of France. Problem, many establishments have got into the habit of dragging to produce the document, when they do not purely and simply classify the file. This difficulty is quite simply eliminated, since the decree has just instituted a system of implicit refusal. It is now enough to produce before the Banque de France proof of the process that has been undertaken (acknowledgment of receipt of the registered letter addressed to the banking establishment or receipt of deposit in person of the request).

Last word to the banks

The decree nevertheless provides that you must wait a period of 15 days after the initial request to make your request to the Banque de France. Then, and as was already the case before, the latter has 1 working day to designate an establishment, which itself has 3 working days to ask the individual for the documents necessary to open the account. This time again, the establishment has no obligation to accept the client. But he must then justify his decision to the Banque de France. This is quite dissuasive, since the majority of requests from the Banque de France lead to account openings. Some institutions, however, are more requested than others. The banking supervisory authority (ACPR) thus deplored in 2014 that between July 2010 and June 2012, the Banque de France had designated Société Générale more than 6,500 times to open free accounts for holders of this right, but that in the end, only 1,257 people were able to benefit from it.

(1) https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000045340629

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