France gets a taste of Open Banking

Two fintechs have brought the benefits of API banking to France:

- 

British fintech company Revolut has recently announced that some 1 million bank customers in France can now avail of the benefits and conveniences of open banking in France. The new feature allows retail customers of Revolut to connect their Credit Mutuel, Caisse d’Epargne, Banque Populaire, Credit Agricole, Societe Generale, BNP Paribas and Hello Bank! bank accounts to Revolut, allowing them to view all their balances and transactions in a single app. The app makes use of the platform provided by API provider TrueLayer, guaranteeing the integration and updating within Revolut of account information from the connected French banks. Revolut has plans to allow French customers to top up their accounts directly from one of the linked external accounts.

Revolut is a UK regulator authorized entity as an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) and is licensed to provide Account Information Services (AIS) and Payment Initiation Services (PIS) in European countries, including France. Its main feature is that customers can authorize the presentation of their transactions from a French bank account in the Revolut application via that bank’s secure API. Once they have given their consent to Revolut, the fintech can request accounts information from the customers’ external banks and display it in the Revolut app.

OPEN BANKING LIVE