According to Les Echos, Crdit Mutuel Arka decided to close Aumax for me. Five years after its launch, the payment application has not found its audience.
The French policeman of the financial sector had launched the alert. In a study published in October 2018, the ACPR expressed its doubts about the ability of new players in retail banking and payments build a profitable business model: The challenge lies (…) in their ability to maintain their development momentum and absorb the related costs. However, while the players surveyed in our study are aiming for a total of 13.3 million customers by the end of 2020, there is nothing to suggest a growth in the French market (…).
Four years and a pandemic later, those fears are coming true. ING, one of the figureheads of online banking, is in the process of closing its last accounts in France. Next on the list could be called max for me. According The echoes, the payment application is in great danger. Engaged in a strategic review, its sole shareholder, Crdit Mutuel Arka (CMA), would have act its upcoming closureafter having already cd Leetchi, an online kitty specialist, and announced the end of Pumpkin.
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An original proposal
Launched in 2017 by Nouvelle Vague, an internal fintech at the CMA, Aumax for me (formerly Max) had the mission of test the new economic models opened up by the use of personal banking data. To achieve this, Aumax for me relied on the unique alliance between an aggregating bank card, a concierge service and a budget optimization service. Objective: to encourage users to give Aumax for me access to the data of all their bank accounts. Data that Aumax could then use to make commercial proposals and be remunerated as a business provider.
Crdit Mutuel Arka: No one wants to become the bank’s Virgin
Alas, the proposal never found its audience. In 4 years, Aumax for me would have only distributed 100,000 bank cards. An insufficient figure to hope to make his model work. According The echoesthe end of Aumax for me could lead to the loss of 48 jobs, knowing that the group could propose reclassifications.