Bank fees rose by 2.7% between February 2025 and February 2026, three times faster than inflation, after having already risen 3.1% last year, according to the Observatory of Bank Fees (OTB) published on Tuesday.
The average annual price of account maintenance fees has for example increased by a little over 3.7% this year, to reach €22.39 on average, according to this annual study conducted by the Financial Sector Advisory Committee (CCSF).
Prices for an international payment card, whether it is immediate debit or deferred debit, are also trending upward, reaching about €45 per year.
The prices of bundled service offers, meanwhile, rose by 2.37% between April 2025 and April 2026, according to the same source. Widely offered, these flat-rate packages often include providing a payment card, account management and insurance of payment methods.
The report “confirms the long-term controlled trajectory of the prices of banking services,” says the French Banking Federation (FBF), which highlights rising costs for banks in salaries and IT.
In a separate reaction sent to AFP, the National Union of Family Associations (Unaf) disapproves this rise and contrasts it with the substantial profits of French banks last year.
BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole, Société Générale, the BPCE group (bringing together Banque Populaire and Caisse d’Épargne) and Crédit Mutuel together earned more than €35 billion in net profit in 2025, even though they were hit with an extra corporate tax surcharge.
OTB compares a number of tariffs from one year to the next.
The CLCV association, for its part, at the start of each year, provides the total average cost of bank charges for French consumers. According to it, banking fees rose by an average of 3% this year, particularly on basic services such as account maintenance fees and card fees.
Unaf also regrets the lack of transparency of banking actors regarding irregularities and payment incident charges.
It even calls on lawmakers “to initiate a cross-party information mission to shed light on the role of incident charges in the business model of retail banks”.
The Panorabanques comparator, a rare source on the subject, estimates that incident charges account for more than a third of banking fees.
Fees for irregularities and incidents did contribute to the rise in prices of banking services in 2025, according to CCSF, but less so in 2026.
The CCSF is a public body where representation is shared equally by financial institutions and customers, along with parliamentarians and unions. The OTB covers 102 institutions, representing 99% of market share.
