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Waiting for the money van: when having an ATM around the corner is a luxury

Once a month, a bookmobile goes through the streets of Matilla de los Caños del Río, a small municipality of Salamanca with 627 inhabitants. It does the same in Pedrosa de la Armuña (216) or in Aldearrubia (486). The vehicle, also equipped with an ATM, is the formula that the Salamanca Provincial Council has found to guarantee that the residents of these towns have access to cash. It is a problem that runs through the rural world, a reality, fueled by the closure of branches, which has pushed many mayors to go out on the streets, and which in the case of the elderly is aggravated by their lack of management with new technologies. . In addition to the demand that the bank provide a dignified, humane and close treatment to its veteran clients, there is also the request that the branches be kept open or some type of alternative be provided. The clamor spreads throughout the country, but in the electoral contest in Castilla y León, the socialist candidate, Luis Tudanca, has been the first to make a move, promising that if he reaches the Board he will break with those financial entities that do not comply with these two requirements. Esperando al furgón del dinero: cuando tener un cajero a la vuelta de la esquina es un lujo Esperando al furgón del dinero: cuando tener un cajero a la vuelta de la esquina es un lujo

The question is not trivial. 19% of the inhabitants of Castilla y León are over 70 years old, and as the director of the Electoral Observatory of El Confidencial, Ignacio Varela, explained in this information, the oldest electorate continues to be faithful to bipartisanship. The community exemplifies the problem perfectly. The elderly in the region do not directly have someone who attends to them behind a window. Neither good nor bad. Neither with greater patience or without it. No one. 365,000 people, 15% of the region's population, do not have access to a point for withdrawing money in cash, according to data from a study by the Bank of Spain. 1,875 municipalities, that is, 83.41%, do not have a bank branch, according to the same report. Autonomy is the one that registers the worst data in the entire country.

Hence the mobile librarians from Salamanca. The Provincial Council launched the experience last November with the aim of fighting against "financial desertification", a reality that in the province, according to figures from the institution itself, "affects more than 80% of the 362 municipalities". 129 towns have benefited from the initiative and, especially, older people, the group that has the greatest problems moving to other towns with a branch, point from the institution. The idea is simple, the vehicles are equipped with a multi-brand ATM that allows cash withdrawal regardless of the bank to which it belongs. Of course, upon payment of a commission of one euro. The cost of the service, 18,000 euros a year, is assumed by the Provincial Council, which has installed a cashier in two of the three library buses that run through the province.

Up in arms

However, in the community with the greatest problems in accessing a cash withdrawal point, Zamora is the province with the worst data. 47,354 neighbors, 27.8%, and 201 municipalities do not have an ATM. "And the trend is that they are going to close more. We are not worried about them. We are just numbers. Entities are looking for what is profitable and nothing else," argues resigned Luis Alonso, president of the Zamora delegation of the Democratic Union of Pensioners and Retirees from Spain. That is why he insists that only the administration can stop the closure of branches, in some way discounting the opening of facilities or putting other types of alternatives on the table, in the style of what was done in Salamanca.

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Esperando al furgón del dinero: cuando tener un cajero a la vuelta de la esquina es un lujo

The successive mergers and takeovers in the financial sector have erased from the map the old savings banks that spread throughout the country, the impulse in addition to new technologies and the remodeling of the sector itself are other ingredients that have caused a constant trickle of closures in small towns. "The population is running out of care and that is something tremendous. You have your money, your savings account, but you cannot access those funds," sources from the Zamora Provincial Council denounce. The institution is considering the installation of ATMs in public buildings, but beyond the search for alternatives, it has decided to hit the table.

If Tudanca has promised that they will only be able to collaborate with the administration —"collect taxes, access our debt, continue on the financial platform…"—, those entities that provide decent treatment and do not close branches, the Zamora Provincial Council will directly cancel its accounts with Unicaja if it cuts the service it provides in the rural world. The associations of the province and municipalities have joined the órdago before the possibility that the entity lowers the blind of 12 of its 19 offices.

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From Unicaja, however, the efforts made to maintain the service in rural areas of the country as a whole and of the community in particular stand out. "The entity is working on the search for collaboration formulas with the administrations and economic agents. Likewise, progress is being made in general in the future implementation, also in Castilla y León, of a remote attention service through assigned managers, and technological options are analyzed to obtain cash through businesses in rural areas", defend sources from the bank.

The entity, a financial benchmark in Castilla y León, has 225 offices and 102 financial agents that travel to the municipalities to provide customer service in rural areas. A model, according to the same voices, that "allows the presence of the entity in small municipalities, providing attention in person, and helping to avoid financial exclusion. Since 2020 Unicaja Banco has doubled the number of agents in the region, providing a service that is especially valued by customers in sparsely populated areas".

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"We want facts"

Faced with Tudanca's commitment, Alonso, who has been at the head of the Zamora retiree entity for 12 years, assures that he got tired of hearing promises that later no one keeps. "Our disappointment is such that the only thing we want are facts. Not pretty words when the elections come," he adds. "It's a host of things, if you want to give assistance to the rural world, you have to provide facilities. What is banking? It's a company that is dedicated to making money, because something has to be done to make it stay." The retiree details that the problems faced by the elderly when dealing with banks are multiple. From ignorance of digital tools to not knowing how to update the passbook at an ATM. That, he points out, for those who have access to this type of facility.

It is a group accustomed to handling cash, in addition, the adaptation of businesses in the rural world to other types of payment cannot be compared to the possibilities of the big cities. And, of course, there is the digital divide. According to INE data from 2021, 31.8% of people over 74 years of age had used the internet in the last three months and 20.6% daily, while only 7% had made an online purchase. in the previous three months.

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And although Tudanca was the first to ride the wave of a social claim that is sweeping the country in the heat of initiatives such as the one carried out by a retiree from Valencia, who has obtained more than 480,000 signatures on change.org so that the bank guarantees a deal personalized, the groups that make up the Emptied Spain have been denouncing this reality for some time. A problem to which the central government also tied the knot in the middle of the pre-campaign. Precisely, at the gates of the electoral contest, on February 21, in Salamanca, Vice President Nadia Calviño announced that she had given the bank employers a month to present a battery of measures to ensure decent attention to the older ones, with a special focus on the "rural world".

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