The “Bank Cards” group, or CB, met in Paris this Tuesday, October 10 with its ecosystem (banks, merchants, start-ups, etc.) for a show of force in the face of competition from American giants Visa and Mastercard.
The payment sector is “lively, strong, innovative and sovereign”, recalled in the introduction Philippe Laulanie, the general director of the Economic Interest Group (GIE) CB.
However, in recent years it has suffered two hard blows: the abandonment last year of the card component by the consortium of European banks European Payments Initiative (EPI), for the benefit of a dematerialized wallet accessible on mobile, and the acceleration given by confinements to online payment, where Visa and Mastercard are very present.
Despite this, “the card is far from being dead”, insisted Mr. Laulanie, highlighting for example the new impetus given by the increase to 50 euros in the contactless payment ceiling in businesses.
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CB ten times cheaper than its competitors
This gathering, the first of its kind, follows a first stage of communication this summer, when the group published a advertising manifesto entitled “Paying with CB means paying Made in France ».
Born in 1984, the Economic Interest Group (GIE) Cartes Bancaires emphasizes patriotism to stand out from American competition, but also on its prices for merchants, approximately ten times cheaper than its competitors, said this was the president of CB and deputy general director of Crédit Agricole SA Jean-Paul Mazoyer.
CB also has need to close your own ranks. One of its shareholders, the BPCE banking group, for example markets non-“co-badged” payment cards, which only offer the Visa payment system. Another of its shareholders, Société Générale, does the same via its online banking subsidiary BoursoBank, formerly Boursorama, which now has 5 million customers.
As a result, the number of CB cards in circulation decreased between 2021 and 2022, going from 77.1 million to 76.1 millionaccording to the group’s annual report.
The CB summit brings together 1,200 professionals, half bankers and half industrialists. Two thirds of French people’s current expenditure payments are made using the bank card payment scheme.
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