Catalonia launches mobile banking services to small communities
Vans will visit villages in the region once a month so local residents can do their banking
Catalonia announced that it would start a new “mobile banking” service in September, but this one has nothing to do with phones and apps. Specially equipped vans will visit small and remote communities across the region with the aim of providing their residents with the opportunity to receive in-person banking services thus saving them the need to travel to a larger town that has bank branches.
The service will be launched in the province of Girona and will be rolled out gradually throughout the region until December. In this way, the Catalan Government guarantees that access to financial services will reach 100% of the population of Catalonia before the end of the year.
503 communities will benefit from the new service
The Catalan mobile banking service will rely on two vans that have been specially equipped, for example with an ATM on their board. The vehicles will travel according to a pre-determined schedule around the countryside with the goal of making calls to 503 communities altogether.
The initiative is the product of a collaboration between the Government of Catalonia and CaixaBank and Caixa Enginyers banks.
Each of these entities will guarantee the passage of a mobile banking van at least one day per month in each municipality. In the case of municipalities with up to 250 inhabitants, they must spend a minimum of 30 minutes and in those with more than 250 inhabitants, the vans must stay for at least one hour.
Citizens in these villages can expect the usual banking services they would receive at a physical, static branch: opening and closing of bank accounts, credit applications, financial advice, etc. And as mentioned above the vans will also have an ATM on board.
What necessitates the new service is the reality of the banking sector. Catalonia has lost about 6,000 bank offices in the past 15 years due to a surge in online banking, among other things. That trend, however, has left people living in more remote and small communities without access to a bank branch for these moments when they need one.
