The banking Spanish is advancing these days in its action plan to improve the access basic financial services, particularly cashof over half a million people on the rural spain. The employers AEB (banks), MINT (former savings banks) and UNACC (credit cooperatives) work in a scheme that divides the municipalities beneficiaries in four groups depending on its population: less than 300 inhabitants, between 300 and 500, between 500 and 1,000, and between 1,000 and 5,000, according to EL PERIÓDICO. Based on this size, sources familiar with the work explain, each group of municipalities would be given a cocktail other than measures which will include the action plan.
The sectoral initiative, thus, contemplates installing more ATMs automatic; increase agreements with Correos to use their offices to provide basic financial services (an extended practice in countries such as Ireland, the United Kingdom or Australia and that Santander and some smaller entities have already incorporated in Spain); expand the fleet own mobile offices (the so-called ‘ofibuses’); increase the number of financial agents (person or company acting on behalf of a credit institution without belonging to it); and reach more cash back dealsthat is, cash withdrawal in commercial establishments such as gas stations and pharmacies.
These are the main lines of the proposal of self-regulation that the sector has transferred to Ministry of Economybut still have not been agreed with the same with which they can still undergo variations. In fact, there is the air that the plan will be presented before the holidays, as intended. One of the aspects that is not clear, thus, is how it will be decided which entity should implement the measures in each specific municipality. The idea is to implement the plan as a new protocol expansion for “reinforce the social commitment” of the sector that the employers signed a year ago and that included a series of measures on inclusion and financial education, as well as labor, salary, environmental sustainability and digitization.
Excluded population
In said document, the creation of a Observatory for Financial Inclusion to make a “access map to financial services in rural Spain”, which will be presented this Tuesday and which the employers commissioned Joaquin Maudos (Professor of economic analysis at the University of Valencia and deputy director of research at the Ivie). To develop it, we have used geolocation tools to find out, if there is no bank access in a municipality, how many kilometers away from the road and what travel time is the closest access point.
As this newspaper advanced a month ago, its two main preliminary conclusions are that around a 3.3% of the population (1.56 million people, with data from the end of 2021) resides in populations without branch bank, although with some other physical access route to the most basic services (such as ATMs or ‘ofibuses’). On the other hand the 1.4% of the population (about 665,000 Spaniards) don’t have access to cash in your municipality. The greatest efforts are planned to be deployed on this group of municipalities, since in addition to being neglected, in many cases they present a middle Ages of the inhabitants between seven and eight years old to the country as a whole, as well as a slightly lower income level.
shared cost
The economic vice president, Nadia Calvinoalready publicly urged the sector last January to adopt new measures to improve its service to old people. After a month of negotiations, a package of initiatives emerged that the employers signed as a first extension of the protocol of last year. Now it’s about giving new twist centered on rural Spain.
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“It has to be said that It is not only a problem of the banks, the problem of depopulation is a challenge for everyone. We have seen that there is also a theme there with the public services. But the banks certainly have the commitment to work on this as a top priority so that no customer is left behind, regardless of their place of residence and their digital capabilities”, assured the president of the AEB, Alejandra Kindelansome days ago.
The sector, yes, asks to share the costs. “Solutions will be sought, but they have to be shared solutionsbecause the financial sector is an essential service but not a public service. They have to be combined with the public administrations, which do have to guarantee the public service. There must therefore be a public-private collaboration“, argued a few weeks before the spokesman for said employer, José Luis Martínez Campuzano.