According to the report from the official French banking observatory (Observatoire des tarifs bancaires - OTB), banking charges in 2024 remain relatively unchanged over 2023, although the charges applied to customers whose circumstances were financially fragile have fallen sharply.

The 2024 report covers banking fees for this year in 93 High Street banks and 7 online banks, representing almost the entire market.

The authors state that overall charges for banking services increased by +3% between June 2023 and June 2024, slightly above the rate of inflation (+2.2%).

Over the past two years prices have increased by +2.9%, substantially below the level of inflation (+6.8%). Over ten years the increase in charges has also been lower than inflation.

Out of 14 main banking services, there were price increases in 7 of these services, notably for account maintenance, which increased on average by +5.8% from €19.97 to €21.13 a year.

Charges for payment cards also increased by around +3%. The average annual fee for an immediate debit card has risen from €41.97 to €43.33 and for a deferred debit card from €41.93 to €43.31. Many banks offered the same price for both types of cards.

The authors noted that on-line SEPA payment transfers in Europe were now universally free of charge, as was the creation of a new account on-line.

All of the charges given by the report exclude the 'package' services offered by most banks, where a number of services are grouped and offered at a fixed charge. They are not always good value for money as some services may not be used on a regular basis, if at all.

Although the report does not identify individual banks and their charges, those applied by on-line banks were lower than the High Street banks, with several offering free banking, albeit with a reduced number of services.

For customers in a situation of financial fragility, the report states that all the banks had a nil-cost or low-cost offer (Offre Clientèle Fragile - OCF). The average OCF annual charges payable fell by nearly -40% from €19.07 to €11.49.

OCF beneficiaries have banking incident fees capped at €20 per month and €200 per year. These incident fees were abolished in 56 banks in 2024 (compared to 44 in December 2022).