If you have something other than a Visa bank card and plan to take advantage of the 2024 Olympic Games being held in Paris, you could have an unpleasant surprise with your payments. Visa, the world leader in digital settlements, has been a partner of the Olympic movement since 1986, and the Paralympic movement for 20 years. This partnership gives the American company exclusivity for bank card payment services on all Olympic sites until 2032.
Thus, during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, only Visa cards and cash will be accepted at official points of sale for food, drinks and souvenirs. A situation far from unprecedented since Visa has operated this partnership at each edition of the Games for four decades, with the exception of Beijing 2022 where the digital yuan was also accepted. For Visa, this global event logically represents an exceptional showcase to promote its brand and its services to millions of international visitors.
Options for holders of other bank cards
Beyond the commercial agreements between Visa and the IOC, this exclusivity obviously raises questions about the experience of spectators without a Visa card, in particular Mastercard and CB holders who represent 40% of French people, according to the GIE Cartes Bancaires.
To remedy this, Visa provides three possibilities. The first is the installation of around sixty ATMs on all sites in order to withdraw cash. The second is a little more modern since it is a mobile payment solution with a prepaid virtual Visa card, to be credited and used via a dedicated app. Finally, a third choice consists of the provision of physical prepaid Visa cards, to be purchased and recharged directly at the Olympic sites. If it’s any consolation, they will only be valid until the end of 2024 in France and will undoubtedly become collector’s items thereafter.
Visa assures that these options will be free, simple to implement and accessible to everyone. The challenge for the brand is to best support the 15.1 million visitors expected, according to the Paris Tourist Office, and even 16.1 million across the entire national territory, in order to avoid queues. waiting at ATMs and abandoned shopping carts.
1.05 billion Mastercard users left behind
This legal model, because it results from a private contract between the IOC and Visa, nevertheless gives rise to reservations in France, where consumers are used to the interoperability of payment networks. Some see a risk of disrupting the Olympics by closing access to the 1.05 billion Mastercard credit cards active worldwide.
Beyond the practical aspect, this exclusivity poses a problem in terms of French digital sovereignty compared to the North American giants. CB cards come from the French domestic payment network managed by the “CB” bank card group. It should still be noted that the majority of French CB bank cards are co-badged with Visa or Mastercard.