GoCardless Making further Progress in France

Three years after it officially started rolling out their service in France, the British start-up is opening an office in Paris to keep pursuing their development. GoCardless focuses on simplifying and dematerialising direct debit-based recurring payments.

GoCardless was founded in 2011 and built a service enabling companies to accept SDD-based recurring payments. Their solution was first intended for smaller companies but soon started to reach out for larger groups. From London, they also attracted some companies in France, such as Axa and EDF.

Their office in Paris is announced after promising results have been reported in France. GoCardless now tries to consolidate their market implantation and looks into recruiting several profiles, including a country manager. They aim for stronger growth in terms of sales figure in France, +100 to 150% year-over-year.

The FinTech partnered with several French vendors so they would enable companies to connect to their software platform. Discussions are also underway with some local banks on considering potential partnerships.

Comments – Recurring payments witnessing growth

Many foreign FinTechs are aiming for France as they try to reach out for their local customers. This year only, international start-ups including ConSensys and Circle Pay, have announced they were opening offices in Paris. Their interest echoes both the maturity and attractiveness of the French market.

GoCardless will be walking in SlimPay’s footsteps, since they also focus on SEPA Direct Debits. This French specialist benefited from a growing interest in “Pa-as-You-Go” services and managed to stand out on an expanding market. They will soon face this UK FinTech, as well as some former start-ups, once positioned on the e-payment sector, i.e.: Stipe and Adyen, for instance. SlimPay still claims they are cheaper and well-established on the market for recurring payments.

With their new office in Paris, GoCardless once again shows that they are aiming for the European market. They stressed international ambitions, as well, and would even want to build an international network for direct debits: enabling, for example, a Canadian customer to directly debit an Australian account, through GoCardless.