Proposition 50K1370

Projet de loi instaurant un service bancaire de base.

General information ¶

Author

PS | SP Karine Lalieux

Submission date

July 18, 2001

Official page

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Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

bank credit institution

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP Open Vld N-VA MR FN VB

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Discussion ¶

Dec. 5, 2002 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, a bill submitted by Mrs. Lalieux and whose title was initially "instaurating a universal banking service", after numerous opinions and hearings, turned into a bill "instaurating a basic banking service". The government took into account the remarks and amendments submitted by the parliamentarians of the commission to introduce an amendment globalizing all these remarks.

Ms. Liliou will have the opportunity to present it to you in more detail. As a rapporteur, I will simply say that this bill makes it mandatory to open an account for every citizen who asks for it. The opening of this account, with all information relating to the holding of an account, will be accompanied by a possibility to resort to a number of operations, a number that will be fixed by decree, but the Consumer Council and the Banking Commission have already issued opinions on the operations to be integrated into this basic service.

What is important is that this service includes operations both at the box office and via the electronic system, so that every citizen, regardless of their skills and capabilities, can be served. Two objectives are thus achieved. Every citizen can have access to an account and receive a bank card in such a way that he can receive payments and participate in our general mode of consumption, while having the ability to properly manage it and to benefit, if necessary, from the support of the bank's staff according to the checkpoint.

This service is to be offered by all credit institutions – there will therefore be no bank of the poor, to which low-income people will have to address – in order to establish solidarity between banking institutions. We know, in fact, that some establishments have no or few low-income clients, while others, on the other hand, have a historical vocation to attract these customers. A compensation fund will be established for the provision of basic banking services. This fund will be managed by the National Bank of Belgium. Depending on the distribution of these accounts, this money will be redistributed to the institutions that will have more participated in the basic banking service.

This proposal was adopted unanimously.

You and Pray, Madame.

The President,

Muriel Gerkens (ECOLO- Mr. Minister, the Ecolo group will obviously support this project, which is of paramount importance. We have ⁇ taken care to ensure that the transactions at the checkpoint are included in this basic banking service. I would like to highlight this especially today because we have just inaugurated the European Year of Persons with Disabilities, to which 2003 will be dedicated. Access to the service is a measure that often allows people with limited intellectual capabilities to manage an account without going through virtual means that require levels of abstraction and special intellectual capabilities. Thus we worked on accessibility, for these people, to banking services.

Mevrouw Creyf, u opent de algemene bespreking. Then I propose Mr. Van Overtveldt, dan of Mr Lenssen in mevrouw De Meyer. In any case, I will put Ms. Lalieux at the end.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, Colleagues, this bill is primarily translating the charter of the banks on basic banking services into legislation. Now, that charter on basic banking services has been in place since 1997. The banks then voluntarily undertook to offer a basic banking service to everyone. What exists to this day through the self-regulation of banks is thus transformed into harsh legislation. And there is a good reason for that.

Everyone agrees that people in our society have the right to open a vision account. All groups and also the banks agree with this. Having a vision account is important to be able to participate in our society. Although opening a vision account doesn’t cost much, usually around 10 to 12 euros, many socially weak people are still refused by the banks when they want to open a vision account.

Why is the charter of the banks insufficient? We must note that a number of banks do not comply with the provisions of the charter. Although the official directives of the banks are consistent with the provisions of the charter, the application in the offices does not appear to produce the desired effect. Mrs Lalieux’s bill was submitted to the House 18 months ago. If everyone agrees on it, why has it been so long that the committee’s bill could come to the plenary? Well, the insider had an entirely different track in sight at first. Initially, the applicant wanted to introduce a basic service that would be free for everyone. for everyone. She wanted to compel the Post to provide that service and the Post would be compensated for this through a fund. That was Ms. Lalieux’s bill.

Now, afterwards, this starting point turned out to be inappropriate. The Council for Consumption gave advice and put the bill on a completely different track that closely aligned with the already existing charter on basic banking services. The partners represented in the Consumer Council, including the consumer organisations and the Association of Banks, proved to be able to reach an almost complete compromise. That compromise also concerned the price of the basic banking service and the number of transactions that would be covered by the basic banking service.

What did the politician do with that advice? Strike in the wind! They took parts of it, but other parts did not. And why ? Because there was a very different concern among the politicians of the majority. The proposal was also related to the refinancing of the Post. And that was not insignificant for the federal budget. Therefore, there had to be a construction at the size of the Post. That construction raises a lot of questions and actually the discussion is not yet fully clarified.

Despite many questions, the clarity about this compensation fund remains out.

The government amendment, which replaced the original proposal of Mrs. Lalieux and adapted it to the opinion of the Consumer Council, proved to be technically undermeasurable. In this regard, Mr. Minister, countless examples can be cited, of which I will only list a few.

In the first reading, we formulated comments on the scope of the law and asked whether De Post should fall within the scope of the law. The government, however, remained deaf to our arguments, and the majority banks were bothered because they felt that we were stretching the time. A few months later, however, in the second reading, it turned out that we were right and that the government and the majority were at the wrong end.

There is another provision that will be ⁇ with great pleasure. Indeed, Article 5(4) provides that the National Bank of Belgium determines each year the contribution to be paid by the credit institutions and determines the part to be allocated to each credit institution. What is allocated to a credit institution should take into account the difference between the actual costs of those credit institutions and the maximum flat rate fixed at EUR 12. What should be understood as the actual costs of the credit institutions is unclear and this point also could not be clarified in the committee. Are there positive or negative differences? Are the actual costs per credit institution or the actual costs of all credit institutions combined? Or is it about the actual costs incurred for a particular transaction? We wish the National Bank with this provision of Article 5, paragraph 4, very much pleasure.

A purple-green law cannot apparently be made without Kafkaic provisions, and this also applies to this law. Article 7 provides for an out-of-court complaint procedure providing for the establishment of an independent body. From this, it could be inferred that Parliament follows the consumer organisations that have advocated for this. However, the third paragraph of Article 7 states that that procedure and that body can — not ‘must’ — come into being at the earliest after two years. Such a judicial complaint procedure was strongly advocated, but now it turns out to be a sterile compromise. The CD&V Group submitted many amendments to the Committee on Business, asked very concrete questions and the report shows that its members participated very actively and constructively in the debate. Everything has not yet been clarified, but it was the wish of the majority that this imperfect document would be submitted to the plenary session.

Laws should be more than symbols. Laws should be operational and have meaning in the lives of individuals. Today there will be a vote on a media symbol, but in no way on a operational law. The great thing is that this law may be approved unanimously.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, with regard to the problem of the provision of a basic banking service, the MR welcomes its contribution, on the one hand, to the bill proposed by Ms. Karine Lalieux and, on the other hand, to the fight against bank exclusion by voting on this proposal aimed at making available to disadvantaged persons modern means of payment, thus enabling them to use the current means of circulation of money. In fact, the use of a bank card has become, over the years, a banal gesture of everyday life. Most people pay their purchases almost exclusively with their card. The same applies to the monthly settlement of rent, gas, electricity or telephone bills, mainly by bank transfers.

Imagine for a moment having, at the beginning of each month, to turn around all your creditors to pay them, in cash, what you owe them. You will quickly understand the many inconveniences of this system, in addition to the possibility of loss or theft. The lost time would be considerable. Nevertheless, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, this situation is experienced daily by thousands of people deemed “at risk” by banking institutions and who are therefore denied access to a bank account. I obviously do not blame the banks that — I believe everyone will agree — are not public charities.

I welcome the initiative taken, ensuring that now everyone can benefit from a bank account. Nevertheless, even if I agree with the principle, I am not fully satisfied with this proposal because it does not solve all problems. Indeed, once paid to these accounts, some amounts no longer benefit from the protection related to seizure and inaccessibility. I mean family benefits, for example, the minimex, the guaranteed income for the elderly or the sums paid as social assistance by the CPAS. However, it is known that these amounts only benefit from the protection of the Judicial Code outside bank accounts and can be subject to seizure, once paid on one of them. However, nothing is planned in this regard. Therefore, the MR proposes to remedy this problem. In order to do this, Mr. Bacquelaine and Chastel introduced a bill concerning the creation of social bank accounts and the non-seizure of amounts paid to these accounts. I hope that this proposal will soon be discussed in the Economic Committee.

The second problem I highlight in this bill is that this type of account is accessible to everyone, you and me, however, of course, that we declare on the honor not to have another account in sight and that we do not already have a basic banking service. In short, anyone with their primary residence in Belgium, including people who can open a normal account without problems in the or the banks of their choice, has the right to open a basic banking service. I understand that there should be no discrimination and that these basic accounts should not be transformed into "ghetto" accounts, but that everyone can have access to them does not seem quite normal to me.

Finally, the provisions relating to the compensation fund still do not seem clear to me, and this, Ms. Gerkens recalled, despite the countless debates which I do not consider useful to refer to here.

In conclusion, I would like to reiterate my support for this bill, convinced that it will bring improvements in the daily lives of many people, which was the aim sought.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, with the present bill, a basic banking service is introduced for all citizens in our country. Every resident, regardless of his income, has the right to a certain basic service. This promotes its integration into society and prevents acidification. In fact, the proposal means that the concept of universal service, which was originally linked to the liberalization of certain sectors such as the postal and telecommunications sectors, is now applied outside those sectors, though in a different way. In the banking sector, all banks are required to provide the basic service. It is therefore not the case that one bank is chosen, which thus threatens to become the bank of the poor. The proposal points out every bank’s responsibility and tries to exclude no one.

That being said, it is clear that the basic banking service must meet a number of margin conditions. First, a basic banking service does not mean that those services are free of charge. That service means a real cost for the banks, which also has to be paid for. The only thing is that the price of the basic service must be so low that no one can be excluded. The bill sets the maximum price, which is provisionally fixed at 12 euros per year. That seems to be a reasonable amount.

Another important margin requirement is that this is a single vision account with the associated basic services and no more than that. The beneficiary may not have bound products at the banking institution concerned, but it is permitted to the King to draw up a list of the services that are compatible. This is regulated in a bill that was implemented, among other things, by an amendment of the VLD.

The VLD has concerns with the compensation fund that was established. Each credit institution will have to contribute to the fund financing. The proceeds from this will go to the institution whose number of basic banking services exceeds its economic interest in the market. In itself, the fund is defensive. It should prevent some banks, despite the legislation, from trying to escape their responsibilities and seeking mechanisms to avoid a particular clientele. However, it is important that the basic banking service is open to everyone and at every bank. Nevertheless, we ask ourselves a few questions about this. How should all this be controlled? How is the economic importance of a bank determined? There is a risk of opening the door for abuse. This should absolutely be avoided.

Nevertheless, there are sufficient resources to encourage the banking sector to cooperate. For example, an amendment by our colleague Lano led to the introduction of civil sanctions. If a bank unjustly refuses the basic banking service to a person, it must offer the service to the person concerned for two years free of charge.

This is an important legislation in the fight against social exclusion. During the discussion in the committee, the proposal was amended and improved and we therefore agree in principle with the introduction of the basic banking service. Despite some critical comments, we will therefore fully support the proposal.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, colleagues, we as SP.A are of course very pleased that today in this plenary session we can finally vote in the House on the bill on the establishment of a universal banking service — which ensures that there is a bank for all. This bill is the result of a long and hard work in the committee. There was the bill of colleague Karine Lalieux, we also had our own bill on the subject, there was the opinion of the Consumer Council, there were all the amendments of the government and there was – last but not least – the rich discussion in the committee. All this has led to the present proposal. Their

Our own proposal had three strength lines. First, we wanted to require all banks to offer a vision account to everyone. Second, we absolutely wanted to see anchored in the law that everybody could still withdraw money from the box. Third, we wanted all this to be free. We have reached the first two points. It is an obligation for all banks and one can still withdraw money from the lock. For the last point, the free service, we unfortunately did not find a majority. However, we have pushed hard to explicitly include the possibility of withdrawing money at the box in the law. This, in our opinion, ensures that even the most vulnerable customers, including those who are unable to cope with electronic banking and withdrawing money from the wall, will continue to have access to the main banking services.

The proposal, which is now under vote, provides a way out of a form of social exclusion that has grown very strongly in recent years. We find that the liberalization of the various forms of services and the tightening of competition do not mean that all consumers have access to these services. This is not only the case with regard to banks, but it is also the case with insurance, mobility, and so on. It appears that some customers, especially those who have financial difficulties, are considered uninteresting by the service providers concerned and are thus rather denied. We believe that this should not be the purpose in a society where solidarity is an important principle. So far, many people in the country have failed to open a vision account with a credit institution. However, the possession of such a vision account, and the right to a number of minimum services associated with it, is a must in today’s society.

The fight against various forms of social exclusion is an important point of action for the SP.A group. It is also important that the present text expressly states that any credit institution that offers visual accounts to consumers must provide the basic banking service. A solution in which only the Bank of the Post would have that obligation, in our opinion, would have led to the fact that we were talking about a bank for the poor here, and that can definitely not be the case.

It is also important that the right to basic banking services is now guaranteed by the law itself. You know that earlier initiatives in this sense have failed due to the adoption by the Belgian Association of Banks of a charter on the basic banking service. This self-regulation proved, once again, not to provide a solution to the problem, especially since this charter was not enforceable, contrary to the current law.

For the rest, we note that the law that is now ahead is ⁇ balanced, and the result of a long discussion. The list of operations that need to be connected to the vision account at least is not exaggerated. The maximum price is — although not free — yet reasonable. We therefore hope that the adoption of this proposal can effectively combat some form of social exclusion.

The role of the state in the economy is often questioned. The mode, the single discourse even wanted, until recently, to consecrate the naturally virtuous and equitable laws of the market. But the overall ideology in the market has shown its limits. The market left to itself can cause strong disruptions, especially when there is, on the market, a double movement of deregulation and of concentration of the main operators. The risk is therefore great that only the pursuit of profit motivates the development of enterprises and that, as a result, the least profitable users are excluded. We then find ourselves in a situation of social exclusion resulting from the search for profitability and very harsh competition. But the exclusion of services, which we can qualify as public interest, is unacceptable. This is an offence to human dignity, to a democratic conception of citizenship.

The banking sector does not escape this trend. It is emblematic of the social consequences of joint movements of deregulation and concentration. This is why, in June 2001, I submitted a bill establishing a universal banking service. Indeed, banking exclusion is today an increasingly important and worrying social reality. This phenomenon has been confirmed by numerous testimonies and studies.

On the one hand, the FGTB, the CSC, or even the mutualities climbed to the niche to relay complaints from their affiliates, clients or bank employees, claiming that most major banks, in the name of a certain profitability, decided to separate from clients deemed unwanted. On the other hand, a Test Buy survey revealed that unemployed people were systematically denied opening a bank account. Finally, the results of a survey commissioned by the Minister of Economy, Mr. Charles Picqué, on alternative financing, demonstrated that banking exclusion does exist and affects an increasingly broad category of citizens, unemployed, students, pensioners, minimexes. The number of banks excluded would be between 40,000 and 100,000. This banking exclusion, in addition to the fact that it must be fought in the name of citizenship, poisones the daily life of those who are victims of it, whether it is the payment of a rental guarantee or invoices, the perception of social benefits, etc.

In the face of this relentless finding, there are not dozens of solutions. It is up to the politician, to the legislator, to correct, to regulate the debrised market. Especially since the attempt to self-regulate the sector based on the good will of the actors, through the establishment of the banking charter, had not yielded results. That is the least that can be said.

The philosophy of the proposal submitted, supported by the government and actively by the Minister Picqué and the dynamics of the Consumer Council, is non-stigmatisation: non-stigmatisation of a category of people, non-stigmatisation of a credit institution. Indeed, I did not want to create a particular product for the poor, such as a social account, or a bank for the poor. Bank for the Poor was in the process of creating itself, both by the practices of some banks, such as the systematic closure of accounts with, in conjunction, the referral to the bank of La Poste, and by the legal obligation imposed on La Poste to open a free account to any person over 12 years of age.

Therefore, in order to empower and solidarise the whole sector, the obligation to open a basic bank account was imposed on all credit institutions. Today, we will vote on a revised and balanced bill. I am grateful for the constructive work of both the Government and my colleagues in commission.

We have already recalled all the important points of this proposal. One of these is indeed solidarity between all the banks in the sector, since there will be a clearing fund. It is also important to know that cash transactions will be made possible for all those excluded by bank automation. As Mr. Van Overtveldt said, I also have a little regret. We have, indeed, not yet been able to resolve the problem of insufficiency and compensation. However, the fact that amounts such as social or family benefits are no longer immune and can therefore be seized when they fall into a bank account is also an important form of bank exclusion.

This regret, however, is moderate as the Consumer Council is working on this issue today and I hope that, in a few weeks, it will offer concrete clues.

This proposal has managed to reconcile social solidarity and economic realism. It is part of the commitment to combat social exclusion in whatever form it may take.

The ball returns to your field. In order for the bank for all to be a reality for all our fellow citizens, I know that we can count on the speed of your employees so that the application stops are quickly published in the Monitor.