Two of the leading firms in their sectors, France Telecom (FT) Orange and BNP Paribas, will launch a mobile banking service in France this November.
To promote adoption, the two companies say they will be offering BNP Paribas customers a bundled package comprising a smartphone, unlimited data and apps to support m-payments and m-banking. While the companies have not announced pricing for the offer, the bank indicted it hopes to attract hundreds of thousands of consumers over the next three years with the m-banking offer.
Commenting on the partnership, Virginie Fauvel, director of online banking at BNP Paribas told the AFP: "This is a very important partnership, and is an exclusive agreement between BNP Paribas and FT Orange."
Of note, BNP Paribas said it will rely on FT Orange to support the mobile element of the new venture, while it would handle all the financial aspects.
This decision is different from how Crédit Agricole, one of BNP Paribas' main rivals, offers m-banking as an MVNO. "Being a mobile operator is a different trade," François Villeroy de Galhau, head of BNP Paribas retail banking in France told the French newspaper Les Echos. "We want to focus on our banking business, that's where we can bring added value. "
Delphine Ernotte, executive vice president of Orange France, said in a statement hat the partnership is an opportunity to explore new territories and to continue offering their customers more and more innovative services. "It relies on Orange's and BNP Paribas' expertise to propose the best of both our worlds."
For more:
- see this release
- see this Pisqa article
- see this Les Echos article (translated via Google translate)
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