Crédit Agricole Keeps Experimenting

• In line with the series of tests started last May in several French towns, Crédit Agricole Bretagne is currently providing contactless cards to 10,000 of its Rennes-based customers.

• They simply have to swap their traditional cards for contactless MasterCard ones in branches, for free. Rollout processes are to be conducted until January 2013 through equipping 130,000 customers as their card renewal date comes up and will be expanded nationwide over two to three years.

• Merchants are provided free of charge NFC POS devices for now. Later on, they would be asked to pay a monthly fee, or charged a certain percentage per transactions to use one.

Source: cBanque

• Last May, the bank started piloting NFC trials in five Breton towns (Saint-Brieuc, Quimperlé, Lesneven, Pontivy and Ploërmel), and Rennes was already on their schedule. In addition to proximity face-to-face payments, the group is also targeting large retail chains (see January 2012 Insight). During their five-month test –involving 96,000 group members and 260 merchants– 9,000 contactless transactions have been conducted.

• The bank is also in talks with elected officials to add a certain number of features to their cards (access to sports equipment, theatres, car parks, etc.). These projects are highlighting the potential of multi-application contactless media.

• Contactless cards rollouts are making progress despite security researchers’ warnings. Their management of private data protection is still being investigated by the CNIL.