Summary of Philippe Laulanie's speech

Director, Chief Executive Officer, Groupement des Cartes Bancaires CB

" The CB Dynamique 2026″ plan

Background

When I was appointed CB director in 2016, my mandate was to "rearm" CB. From 2016 to 2021, the objectives of this rearmament were (1) to open up the CB ecosystem in order, in particular, to involve merchants in governance and (2) to take innovation into account, with the creation of Lab by CB.

This rearmament also aimed to promote standardization.

But we have benefited from two growth engines:

  • Contactless: 600 million transactions in 2016; over 7 billion in 2023, with fantastic resilience. During Covid, we raised the threshold from 30 to 50 euros in six weeks, demonstrating the industrial and inclusive capacity of the CB ecosystem. In addition, the CB figures were a way of measuring the effects of containment and decontainment. In times of crisis, the sovereignty aspect of CB is fundamental, and was put to the test during Covid.
  • E-commerce: of the 14 billion annual payments, 2 billion are made by e-tailers

Work on digitization had been halted or slowed down in order to converge CB with EPI carte. With the decision taken at the end of 2022 not to carry out the "map" part of the EPI project, CB members unanimously decided to launch the CB Dynamique 2026 plan.

Cards account for 60% of transactions in France, and will remain the dominant medium for retail payments in France and Europe by 2030. CB accounts for 20% of card payments in the European Union.

The CB ecosystem is therefore a truly historic, sovereign asset. On a day-to-day basis, it accounts for two-thirds of French household consumption. CB data enables us to track everything that goes on in France, in the different departments and towns, according to consumption and distribution methods. No other player has such a sample. But of course, the data is totally protected.

Despite "decobadging" (which led to complicated years for CB in 2022 and 2023, with the exit of two establishments and more than 5 million "decobadged" cards), the number of CB cards increased again in 2023, thanks in particular to the development of dematerialized luncheon vouchers, with very dynamic digital players boasting more than 6 million cards.

CB advantages

Security

OSMP figures for 2022 show that the fraud rate on card payments is 4 times lower for CB payments than for non-CB payments for "all channels" payments.

Costs

The CB model is efficient: for a single transaction, it's ten times cheaper than other players. It's not us who say this, it's the merchants.

Inclusiveness

CB is an inclusive player, with regard to both fintechs and associations. In the new national strategic plan for payments, accessibility (for the disabled, the frail, etc.) is a major concern for CB.

About cobadging

Cobadging is "the best of both worlds": if Visa (or Mastercard) has a major incident tomorrow, cobadged cards work with CB. If CB has a major incident tomorrow, cobadged cards work with Visa (or Mastercard). So cobadging is safe for everyone.

The "CB Dynamics 2026" plan

In the face of the EPI carte shutdown, and in the light of merchants' declarations following decobadging, the "CB Dynamics 2026" plan drawn up in 2023 and unanimously adopted by CB members (including those who decobadged) is a plan for rearmament and action. It is based on three pillars

  • Pillar 1 Catch up on digital

Widespread deployment of X-Pay CB offers

CB member banks have committed to being all CB cobadged on X-Pay (GooglePay, SamsungPay and ApplePay) within 18 months. Resources are allocated to each bank, and these projects are monitored by the banks' general managers.

Accelerating work on tokenization and CB click-to-pay

This is a 2 to 3-year project, with STET, because we want to do it in compliance, safely and industrially.

Deployment of CPACE

CPACE is going into industrial mode. We already have more than 10 million CPACE cards issued in France, we'll have more than 20 million by the end of the year, and by the end of 2025, the total number of cards should have virtually switched over. Here too, the banks are unanimously committed.

Investment in AI with STET to combat fraud

New deployment schedule for PIN on line

This new timetable has been defined in consultation with all players in the French marketplace.

Simplified CB membership and approval processes

The aim is to be more agile and fluid in recruitment. Significant new memberships are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.

Revision of fallback procedures

In view of the incidents that took place at the end of last year, fallback procedures for incidents on the French market will be reviewed.

  • Pillar 2: a more business-oriented CB mindset

This is a kind of break in CB's history: hiring to sell

Renan Le Bot joined CB and put together a team of 5 people. Around a hundred interviews were conducted with CB members, retailers, etc. to find out how CB is perceived. The summary of these interviews shows that more proximity, more proactivity, more business through more contacts and more services are needed.

  • Pillar 3: more active communication ("letting people know")

We launched this communication as a positive response to the message from retailers, who were saying " CB is losing market share, it's going to cost us, let's defend CB! The bankers issued a manifesto saying " we unanimously voted for CB Dynamique 2026, don't worry, CB will be defended and CB will continue to progress on its 4 values of innovation, efficiency, security and sovereignty ".

How is this new communication taking shape? The first Card Summit at Bercy was aimed at bringing together the industrial ecosystem and CB members; the CB Forum was a great success again this year; we contributed, with the Fondation Concorde and Christian de Boissieu, to repositioning the weight of the card and CB in France and Europe.

We regularly visit the French National Assembly and Senate. All French mayors, deputies and senators have received the Revue de l'hémicycle on "Paying French, a strategic challenge".

In 2024, we'll be holding a CB Trade Day on June 28 at Station F. Major retailers will be there to testify to the quality of the CB offer. And we'll be inviting politicians and ministers to take part in the event: purchasing power being the number-one issue for the French, it's obvious that CB's "ten times cheaper" and "four times more secure" are arguments that speak to retailers and politicians alike.

In sport, we sponsor the FDJ-Suez women's cycling team. CB is on the jerseys alongside these two very feminine and very inclusive brands, and I'm very proud of this team's values of inclusion, resilience and sport.

The Governor of the Banque de France, François Villeroy de Galhau, came to our CB Forum and talked about the "virtuous triangle" (CB/EPI/euro digital). In a triangle, there's a center of gravity. Everyone is talking about wallets today: Wero, DIW, Bizum... It's clear that one branch of the virtuous triangle of payment evolution will be the wallet. Another branch is the digital euro. Nevertheless, the digital euro, Wero, DIW and Bizum are all models that are not going to rise very quickly.

I'm therefore convinced that the center of gravity of the "virtuous triangle" is now tending towards the card and electronic payment. The card's center of gravity certainly needs to evolve towards the others, but I've never seen a project switch from batch to real time in 26 countries at once.

We need to move towards European projects, but perhaps not 26 at once. Perhaps we need to go for it on the basis of what dominates payments. And what dominates payments is the card. And card payments are dominated by the French, Germans and Belgians, who account for 40 to 50%. So launching a European project that already covers 50% could make sense.

What I wanted to say to you this morning is that CB is in Olympic shape for CB Dynamique 2026, and remains a key, sovereign component of the French and European payments triangle.