France sees record bank branch closures as BNP and Société Générale lead cuts

France saw more bank branches shut in the past five years than in the previous decade, according to figures collected by financial newspaper Les Echos, but it still has more branches than any other European country.

At the start of June 2025 there were 36,411 branches, according to the publication, compared to 39,707 five years earlier.

Société Générale led the charge with 542 branches shut, around 20% of its total, leaving 2,678 still open.

BNP Paribas was just behind in percentage terms, shutting 16% of its agencies and leaving 1,621 open.

BNP Paribas said in July that it would start to accelerate closures, without job losses, and wants to shut a third of the existing agencies by 2030.

Staff will be transferred to larger branches in bigger towns.

Big banks in France are divided between those, like BNP Paribas and Société Générale which are public-listed companies, and co-operatives like Crédit Agricole, Crédit Mutuel and BPCE group, where only clients have the option to take shares in local co-operatives, and have a say in how they are run.

Crédit Agricole, in particular, has its roots in the co-operative system that still dominates French farming, and, with other co-operative banks, is most likely to have a presence in small towns.

It still has 5,280 branches open in France – more than any other bank. However, even Crédit Agricole saw 350 branches close.

Where 20 years ago the wait to be served in a local bank could be long, and usually meant a chance to catch up on local gossip, many are now quiet. 

Most customers only go in to sign documents for loans – nearly all other banking operations can, and often are, undertaken online.

European Central Bank figures state that 33,024 bank branches remain open in France, with the difference between its figures and those collected by Les Echos probably due to the ECB not counting agencies which only open part-time.

France still has far more banks than any other European country. In Germany, a country of similar size but a larger population, there are fewer than 20,000 bank branches.

Calculations by the trade body Fédération bancaire française claim that “one in three bank branches in Europe are in France, which shows the ability of banks to provide local services”.

Are cash machines disappearing too?

When a bank branch closes, the cash machine associated with it often disappears too. 

To counter this, as well as to save costs, some banks have been exploring ways to share ATMs.

The largest ongoing project involves Société Générale, BNP Paribas, Crédit Mutuel and CIC, a subsidiary of Crédit Mutuel. 

The project, dubbed ‘Cash Services’, will see the installation of ‘brand free’ ATMs (distributeurs automatiques de billets – DAB) across the country.

It initially had a target of 3,000 shared ATMs by the end of the year, but has now reduced this to 2,500 – partly because so many bank branches have shut.

The intention, rather than simply increasing the number of ATMs, is to distribute them more strategically across the country.

For example, instead of having a Société Générale machine and a BNP machine close to each other on the same street, the new system will mean that there will only be one Cash Services ATM instead. 

Some rural communes will receive a new ATM where there previously was not one.