Access to Administrative Documents in Belgium: Cada Ruling on the Batopin Agreement with the Banking Sector

2023-10-11 18:29:19

The Commission for Access to Administrative Documents (Cada) ruled in favor, on October 4, of Financité, Testachats and Okra in their request intended to obtain details of the agreement signed between the federal government and the banking sector around the installation of ATMs as part of the project Batopin. The associations welcomed this in a press release on Tuesday and are now awaiting the requested documents.

The Batopin project is an agreement between the federal government and the banking sector intended to guarantee access to ATMs in previously deserted places. A new agreement signed on March 31 promises the creation of 207 additional sites to install these devices.

The Financité, Testachats and Okra associations, however, questioned the methodology used to determine the distribution of distributors. They particularly questioned the absence of data on the maximum distance to travel to gain access to a device. As early as June, the associations sent several requests to the federal government in order to have access to documents on the methodology used by the National Bank of Belgium (BNB) to determine the distribution of distributors, on the coverage rate planned for 2025 and on the number of distributors per municipality.

The federal government, however, refused due to potentially sensitive information. Faced with this refusal, the associations contacted the Cada in September, which accepted their request. “We are now awaiting the detailed documents of the Batopin agreement to be able to precisely verify whether the project meets the concrete needs and concerns of citizens.“, declares Testachats spokesperson, Julie Frère.

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