Credit Agricole, BNP Paribas or Socit Generale, who will take over Orange Bank?

The three French banking groups are interested in Orange Bank, which is no longer part of the strategic priorities of the leading French telecom operator. All options are possible, from pure and simple buyout to setting up a partnership.

Orange Bank is for sale. In October 2022, the economic daily The echoes revealed that Orange, the sole shareholder of mobile banking, had mandated Banque Lazard to find a buyer or a partner ready to shoulder it. This is the will of Christel Heydemann, who succeeded Stphane Richard in April 2022, the origin of the diversification of the telecom operator in retail banking. The new director must specify the new strategic roadmap for the group on February 16. Everything is open: an outright sale, a minority sale, a technical or commercial partnership…

The will is there, just find a buyer. always according to The echoes, three French banking groups would be in the running: Socit Generale, Credit Agricole and BNP Paribas. Also among the candidates, the Spanish bank Santander and Cerberus, a United States fund that notably holds My Money Group in France, a specialized credit institution.

Socit Generale could be tempted to do with Orange Bank what it did with ING, which left the French retail banking market in 2022: enter into a commercial agreement allowing its online bank, Boursorama Banque, to recover part of Orange Bank’s clientele at a lower cost. BNP Paribas would have the same objective for Hello bank!, its mobile banking brand. As for the Crdit Agricole, its main objective would not, according to The echoesto merge Orange Bank with BforBank, its online bank, but rather to set up a partnership with Orange.

Orange Bank claims 2.6million customers in France and in Spain. Since its launch four and a half years ago, the bank has accumulated 809 million euros in losses.

Online banking: comparison of offers

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