The French payments scene, particularly in the acquiring space, is shoring up a very stable outlook indeed.
In March Credit Agricole and Worldline announced their partnership in creating a new major player in the French merchant services landscape.
Similarly, in June BNP Paribas and BPCE announced a joint venture whereby they will create a shared processor with their newly acquired technology.
They are already partners within the Partecis (PARTnership for European Card Information System) platform established in 2005 (renewed in 2015 for 12 years), which aimed to serve the expanding demand for e-commerce services through the client base of both banks – BNP Paribas and Groupe BPCE.
Groupe BPCE encompasses the banking brands Banque Populaire and Caisse d’Epargne.
PARTecis was deemed “a great success” recently by BPCE CEO Nicolas Namias, and this “industrial partnership project” is advancing the technology and the reach in line with overt aspirations to become one of the top three processors in Europe.
Although there is no express mention, this activity presumably aligns itself with the European Payments Initiative (EPI) and its digital wallet wero, which hosted its first transactions in Germany in early July to be followed by Belgium, France and then other European countries.
Indeed, the first transactions were between customers from Banque Populaire and Caisse d’Epargne, and Sparkasse Elbe-Elster in Germany.
The Pride of Europe
Worldline and Nexi are founding shareholders of EPI, providing the initial acquiring base for the venture.
The new acquiring platform of Worldline and Credit Agricole will bring in an international client base.
BNP Paribas and Groupe BPCE are also founding partners of EPI and their acquiring platform will funnel a cohort of global asset, wealth management and wholesale service transactions, when the time comes for wero to accommodate them.
These partnerships both serve and fuel a clear demand for improved merchant services domestically and internationally across a spectrum of use cases.
EPI and wero will clearly form part of that burgeoning landscape, however these platforms will stand alone regardless and are therefore an obvious direction for these banking groups to take.
Wero and EPI are a response to the European Commission’s Digital Single Market Strategy, adopted in May 2015 to improve access, infrastructure and promote growth of the digital economy for those serving and consuming across it.
Payments Cards & Mobile Opinion:
In terms of establishing and promoting a European identity, this is nothing new, and in many ways the establishment of EPI is repetition of the history of the merger of Eurocheque and Eurocard to create Europay, which aimed to have European networks (and not just non-European networks) benefit from European commerce.
It is of course a slightly delicate topic but fair is fair.
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