French banks fined for cheque fee cartel

France's banking watchdog has rapped numerous banks across the knuckles, including UK-based HBSC, for charging too much for handling cheques.The Autorite de la Concurrence has handed out fines totalling €384.9m (£321m) to 11 French banks for charging an unwarranted 4.3 cents on check image transfers between January 2002 and July 2007.The banks fined were: Banque de France, BNP Paribas, BPCE, Banque Postale, Confederation Nationale du Credit Mutual, Credit Agricole, Credit du Nord, CIC, HSBC, LCL and Societe Generale. The largest fine, €90.9m, was levied on €90.9m, with Credit Agricole also getting a stiff fine of €82.9m.The watchdog said that the banks colluded to squeeze extra money out of processing cheques after the introduction of France's digital interbank processing system in 2002. The banks argued that the charges were to make up for loss of earnings caused by the fact that instantaneous electronic transfers did not allow them to earn interest on the money being shifted, unlike under the old system where a cheque would take several days to clear - a period in which the banks could earn interest on the money.The authority rejected the banks' claims, saying there was no evidence to suggest that the new system had resulted in net losses for the banks it has fined. "The digitalising of the clearing system has allowed banks to make substantial savings," the regulator claimed. "Neither the firms, nor the consumer, have been able to take full profit from this economic progress," it added."When the new digital system for processing and clearing interbank cheques was set up, the main French banks met and colluded so as to define together the functioning details of the new system," the watchdog's report claimed.The banks abandoned the 4.3 cent commission in 2007 when the watchdog's investigation was underway. The practice of writing cheques remained far more popular in France than in any other country in the eurozone during the period under the regulator's review; around four out of five euro denominated cheques during this period were written by French people.