BBVA bank and post office bring cashpoints to rural Spain
Wednesday, October 19, 2022 @ 8:44 PM
A LEADING bank has signed a deal with the post office to ensure rural areas and remote villages have access to cashpoints and similar services – the BBVA is now offering commission-free withdrawals and home cash deliveries.
Correos, the State mail service, has been setting up several hundred cashpoints across the country in villages with no bank branches or banking facilities, meaning residents do not have to drive to their nearest town to get to their money.
Known as Correos Cash, the system allows customers of participating banks to withdraw money at the post office.
Even very remote parts of the countryside are likely to have a post office within relatively convenient distance, given that mail deliveries are a standard service to any national address – in fact, Correos has 2,389 branches with a cashpoint.
Around 6,000 postmen and postwomen work in rural Spain, and part of their round involves taking cash withdrawn from banks direct to residents' doors.
The BBVA recognises that residents in what is often referred to as 'empty Spain' – rural parts at high risk of population decline due to lack of infrastructure or job opportunities for working-aged adults with children – tend to be pensioners, and often very elderly.
This means they are less likely to be able to drive to built-up areas, and public transport in very rural areas is not frequent enough to act as a feasible car substitute.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com