Open banking has been gaining strong momentum across Europe as more businesses and consumers are educated about the benefits. At the forefront remains the UK and Germany, but close on their heels is France as more institutions are participating and offering open banking as a payment option. In our 2022 Open Banking League Table, France scored 4th position as banks offer their APIs to diversify and leverage data from TPPs.
We’ll be taking a look at where open banking adoption currently stands in France, Yapily’s connectivity across the country, and what the future holds.
Open banking adoption in France
While banks across France were initially reluctant but have since rapidly adopted PSD2 to increase competition as well as benefits to businesses and consumers. Unlike some of its neighbouring countries that use the Berlin Group’s standard API, French banks use the STET API which provides authorisation, fraud detection, and authentication. This however also comes with its own standard of implementation, contributing to discrepancies with banks’ adoption and guidelines.
The regulatory body in France, the Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution (ACPR), oversees the PSD2 and we now have seen almost 95% of French banks adhering these regulations, with some of the leading banks including BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole, and Societe Generale. Despite taking a cautious approach, there is an expressed commitment to open finance innovation.
A 2022 speech by Mr Denis Beau, First Deputy Governor of the Bank of France, commented on France’s adoption of open banking with comments to implore API security and standardisation. One of his closing remarks acknowledged its benefits as well as commitment to promoting innovation, “Open finance could accelerate this trend, which can already be seen in the payments market, by allowing the exchange and cross-referencing of an ever-increasing volume of data. This may ultimately prove detrimental to competition.”
In France, there appears to be a stronger inclination towards the open banking data use cases, such as KYC, accounting, and ERP, rather than the payment offering. Start-ups are swayed more to adopt open banking innovation than the larger and more traditional enterprises who seem to be taking a slower approach as they still need to address and overcome concerns of competition and compliance.
Yapily’s France Open Banking Coverage
Our open banking platform went live in France 3 years ago and we’ve since spanned our connectivity across 105 banks and financial institutions.
Explore the list of available institutions via Yapily’s open banking platform.
Future adoption of open banking in France
On a macro level, Forrester reports that the adoption of open banking services across European countries will likely more than double between 2022 and 2027 as interest grows and financial institutions seek alternative payment solutions. Forrester combined their own data with insights from open banking solution providers including Yapily.
According to Forrester, this growth should accelerate this year, “We expect the gap between consumer interest and adoption to narrow through 2027 as the open banking ecosystem resolves some key challenges… From 2022 to 2024, the pace of open banking adoption will slow slightly, due in part to the greater complexity of open banking solutions and deployments, before accelerating again through 2024–’27.”
With PSD3 on the horizon, this will likely also spur on greater adoption due to greater standardisation of regulations as well as more sophisticated security measures and consumer protection.
Specifically with France, there appears to be adoption on the upswing, but there still needs to be greater education and recognition of the benefits of open banking. Improved communication about the improved user experience, increased security, financial inclusion, and speed of settlement times, all should contribute to greater adoption in the years to come.
Adoption could be spurred on with open banking working groups which bring together regulators, banks, and third-party providers across the country that will focus on clear standardisation, regulations, and effective ways to communicate the benefits.
We saw this occur in the UK which was a significant contributing factor to recognising the impact and stability across regulations and compliance. By following suit of the Berlin Group, France could experience a more unified and standard process that facilitates greater competition and transparency.
Our powerful API connecting across France
France is poised to have greater open banking adoption as we’ve seen increased efforts and recognition of its innovation. With our vast connectivity across French banks and financial institutions, get started with us today.
Speak to our open banking experts to explore our platform and discover how we can help your business connect to France.
