Edenred Partners with Crédit Mutuel-CIC

Edenred, which specialises in prepaid corporate services, announces a strategic agreement with Crédit Mutuel. Starting next month, this institution and their subsidiary CIC will be distributing Ticket Restaurant cards.

Through this partnership, Crédit Mutuel will make their network of 5,000 locations (roughly 13.5% market shares) available to the issuer. Edenred will also benefit from their active involvement with corporate segments, including a significant proportion of SMEs.

The prepaid service specialist already plans to issue 60,000 additional cards through their technological platform. Crédit Mutuel and CIC customers will have access to different Ticket Restaurant features, including mobile payments via Samsung Pay and Apple Pay, as well a direct access to partner food delivery services (Uber Eats, Dejbox, Deliveroo and Rapidle).

This partnership will be effective in the coming days. No detail as to the underlying financial agreement has been disclosed.

Comments – Edenred looking into expansion relays

After reaching new peaks on the stock market, Edenred focuses on boosting their services via a win-win partnership with Crédit Mutuel. For this institution, this is a chance to expand their range of services, reach out for more companies and further secure their corporate customers’ loyalty. Edenred may, for its part, win additional market shares in France. This partnership is mostly intended to increase distribution levels for Edenred’s card based offers, allowing them to cut processing costs and contribute to their economic renewal. Indeed, they have been heavily impacted by the South American crisis, especially in Brazil in 2017.

Reaching out for SMEs

Through this partnership, the prepaid issuer also further focuses on SME targets. They rolled out several especially crafted services, including mobility-oriented solutions for corporate customers and products for works councils. As with the Brazilian institution Itaú Unibanco, Edenred may rely on this partnership with Crédit Mutuel-CIC to increase their customer bases among SMEs.