When the Banque de France supports the instant transfer

At the beginning of the week, the Banque de France committed itself to the democratisation of a payment service of the future: the instantaneous transfer. To this end, it has joined forces with the National Committee for Scriptural Payments (CNPS) to support its democratisation at a time when the issue of European sovereignty over the payment market is more topical than ever.

FACTS

• The Banque de France highlights the advantages of the instant transfer: a payment method capable of transferring money to another bank account in less than 10 seconds, securely thanks to a real-time banking control system.

• This payment method is still presented as the optimised service for individuals and small businesses. And it is in this sense that the CNPS wishes to motivate the use of individuals and professionals.

• To this end, the deployment of the instant transfer in France has been identified as one of the main objectives of the national cashless payment strategy for 2019-2024. A communication campaign should help to raise awareness of this service.

• The Banque de France and CNPS are counting in particular on the adoption of Paylib to boost the use of instant transfers (the service currently has over 25 million users in France).

CHALLENGES

• Catching up: To date, almost 50% of banks in France allow instant transfers. However, only 3% of all transfers in France are made using Instant Payment, compared to 10% in the rest of Europe.

• A palliative solution: Following the backtracking on EPI, the instant transfer appears to be an alternative solution capable of ensuring the harmonisation of the payment market at European level.

• Ensuring European sovereignty: The CNPS and the Banque de France also emphasise the ability of the instant transfer to speed up exchanges on the European market. The payment method would thus be able to support the digitalisation of the economy and its dynamism, while freeing Europe from its dependence on American schemes.

MARKET PERSPECTIVE

• A positive trend has been observed, driven by the increasing adoption by leading banking players. BPCE was the first bank in France to position itself as a traditional bank favourable to the democratisation of Instant Payment. Boursorama, Hello Bank (via its Prime offer), Fortunéo and very recently, La Banque Postale, have since committed themselves to the democratisation of instant transfers by offering the service free of charge to their customers.

• Suravenir Assurances has also just offered a new use for it, to speed up compensation payments to victims.