This update confirmed that cash continued to be very easily accessible nationwide in 2021. At the end of 2021, 82.9% of the population was located less than five minutes by car from an automated teller machine (ATM), unchanged year-on-year, and this figure rises to 94.5% if private cash dispensers and ATMs in retail outlets are taken into consideration.
A total of 73,802 ATMs and private cash dispensers were in operation in metropolitan France at the end of 2021, largely unchanged from the end of 2020.
This virtual stability was due to the increase in private dispensers that almost compensated the reduction in ATM numbers.
Indeed, complementary cash distribution services in retail outlets are continuing to develop and to contribute to public access to cash, particularly in rural areas. With 25,949 outlets at the end of 2021 for the four networks concerned, the number of private cash dispensers increased by 3.2% during the year.
At the same time, the number of ATMs declined slightly by 2% in 2021, with 47,853 in operation at the end of the year, down from 48,831 at the end of 2020. The stability of the ATM accessibility indicator (82.9% for the five-minute indicator) is thanks to the distribution of ATMs nationwide being more balanced overall. More generally, the banking sector’s streamlining of the ATM networks in recent years – given the decline in the use of cash in transactions – has been concentrated in the most populated and best-equipped urban areas. There has therefore been no deterioration in public access to cash. At the moment, cash accessibility indicators are also particularly stable.
