Percé, Que., to lose its only Desjardins branch, ATM

The Desjardins Group has announced the closure of its Percé branch at the tip of the Gaspé Peninsula. As of May 2, neither its service centre or ATM will be available.

Clients will have to travel 20 kilometres to speak with an affiliated bank teller face-to-face.

The president of the Desjardins Group's regional administrative council, Robert Nicolas, says the decision was a difficult one.

Over the last five years, service centre visits have dropped by 66 per cent and ATM traffic by 46 per cent, the credit union says. 

"We arrived at the conclusion that the rate at which clients were using [these services] no longer justified their continued existence," Nicolas said. 

The Desjardins Group of the Gaspé coast says there will be no job cuts and that the two services will be relocated elsewhere. 

"According to Desjardins regulations, we would have had to maintain a minimum of three full-time employees to keep [the services] going, whereas the traffic we've seen up until recently didn't even justify enough work for one full-time employee," said Nicolas. 

He said several alternative options are being planned for Percé clients, such as extending business hours at their Cap-d'Espoir centre, offering personalized support to members or even an adapted transport service.

Mayor, residents express disappointment

The mayor of Percé, Daniel Leboeuf, says he's disappointed by the move.

He says he'll propose alternative solutions to the credit union, such as installing an ATM inside municipal buildings.

During the high tourist season, Percé receives up to 400,000 visitors. But Nicolas says the increase in people "has no impact on the use of our cash counter and ATM."

Leboeuf says the absence of an ATM option might pose a problem for vendors who rely on cash sales.

Percé resident Linda Beaudin deplores the credit union's decision, expressing concern for the municipality's vitality and for its aging population.

She says the closure of the branch can be explained by a number of logical factors, "but there's the whole human aspect that's forgotten in all that." 

According to her, small transactions like buying ice cream, postal stamps or souvenirs all require cash.

The closure of the Percé branch follows the closure of those in Cap-Chat in Quebec's Haute-Gaspésie region and in Newport in Haut-Saint-François.

By the end of 2026, Desjardins says it plans on closing 30 per cent of its points of service and ATMs in Quebec.