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Open banking France: connect every French bank through one API
France pays by card and it pays by transfer, and the transfer half is still done by hand. viaBanking gives your company one API for open banking France, with licensed providers initiating each payment on the payer's consent inside their own bank, and a read-only confirmation that the amount reached the C2B account your business holds. It is a method added to your checkout, and your existing card acceptance stays exactly where it is.
The French starting point
A market with habits worth respecting
Selling a payment method into France means arguing against something that already works. That is a different problem from selling into a market with no established behaviour, and it changes what the product has to be.
- 01
The card is the default, and it is a good default
French shoppers reach for a card without thinking about it, and the domestic card scheme has spent decades making that reflex reliable. Any company selling into France that treats the card as a legacy rail to be removed is arguing with a habit it will not win against.
- 02
Bank transfers already exist, manually
Larger French invoices are settled by transfer today, by a person copying an IBAN into their online banking. That works and it is slow, error prone and impossible to reconcile automatically. The volume is already on bank rails, without any of the payment data that would make it usable.
- 03
Local payment solutions multiply
Wallets, deferred payment solutions, scheme extensions and bank owned initiatives all compete for the same French checkout. Adding another button is an easy decision to postpone, especially when each of these solutions arrives with its own contract, its own integration and its own commercial terms. Most French companies are already carrying more payment solutions than their finance team wants to reconcile.
- 04
Each new method is a separate project
A French ecommerce company that has already integrated three payment services knows exactly what a fourth costs: a contract, an integration, a reconciliation path and a support runbook. The question is never whether a method is interesting, it is whether it earns that cost. Open banking solutions have to clear the same bar as every other payment option competing for the same engineering week.
Definition
How a French bank payment is put together
The framework behind it is described in full on the PSD2 open banking page.
- The channel
French banks operate a regulated access interface
European rules oblige banks in France to run a dedicated open interface that a licensed provider can call on a customer's instruction. It carries a payment request in and payment status back out. It is separate from the online banking screens a customer logs into, and it exists because the regulation requires it rather than because each bank chose to build it. Every open banking payment in France runs through that channel, whichever provider or platform sits in front of it.
- The approval
The payer approves in their own bank
A French payer selects their bank, is taken into that bank's own environment, sees the amount and the beneficiary, and approves. Strong customer authentication happens there. The user's payment consent is given to their bank, and no banking credential travels through the merchant or through viaBanking.
- The roles
Licensed institutions do the regulated part
A licensed PIS provider initiates the payment. The bank authenticates and sends the funds. Those are regulated services, delivered by institutions that hold the permission to deliver them. viaBanking supplies the API, the routing between providers and the normalised payment data model, which is software work and not a regulated payment service. Our company sells software, and the payment services around it come from licensed partners.
The platform
What viaBanking adds to a French payment stack
One API contract, not one per provider
Your systems call a single open banking API endpoint to create a payment in France. viaBanking routes it to the licensed provider that reaches the payer's bank and returns one payment model whichever provider answered. Comparing providers becomes a commercial exercise rather than an engineering one.
A method added, not a stack replaced
Card acceptance stays where it is, with the acquirer your company already uses. The bank transfer route sits beside it as one more option in the same checkout, with its own reconciliation feed rather than its own finance process. Nothing about your existing payment solutions has to be unpicked first.
Confirmed account credit as its own event
A licensed AIS partner checks your own C2B account in read-only mode and we raise an event when the expected amount is credited. Your order release logic can wait for that event instead of trusting an acknowledgement, which is the difference that most open banking solutions leave to the merchant to solve.
French coverage maintained here
Banks change API endpoints and providers extend their lists. That maintenance happens inside our connectivity layer, so a French bank added by a provider shows up on the integration your company already shipped, and the same holds across Europe as you add markets.
The full platform surface is on the open banking platform page. The licensing boundary is set out on the PIS provider page.
Use cases
Where the transfer route earns its integration in France
Open banking solutions do not suit every French business equally. These are the six situations where companies tell us the open banking route paid for the work, and each of them shares one feature: the amount matters enough that a confirmed account credit is worth having.
B2B invoicing in France
An invoice that would otherwise be paid by manual transfer becomes a link. The payer's own bank opens with the amount and the reference already set, so the reference actually arrives intact and your ledger matches it without a human.
High value retail
Furniture, appliances, bicycles and travel, where the basket sits above the level a French shopper is comfortable putting on a card in one go. The transfer route removes the limit conversation entirely.
Account funding for financial platforms
Brokerage, savings and insurance products funded from the customer's own bank. The confirmed account credit is the signal that releases the balance, which matters more here than anywhere else in the business.
Marketplaces collecting from French buyers
One payment reference structure across every buyer bank, so the seller ledger is updated from a credited amount rather than from a payment acknowledgement that may not become money.
Recurring bills and subscriptions
Card handles the monthly charge, and the annual plan or the arrears payment moves as a bank transfer. Both routes report into the same payment data model.
Professional services and deposits
Deposits on services with a long delivery cycle, where the business wants the funds confirmed on its own account before work starts and the client wants to pay from their normal bank.
Capabilities
Seven steps, and the party responsible for each
| Step | What happens | Who performs it |
|---|---|---|
| Payment creation | One API call with an amount, a currency, a reference and your C2B account | Your systems |
| Provider routing | Selection of the licensed provider that reaches the payer's French bank | viaBanking |
| Initiation | The payment is started on the user's payment consent | Licensed PIS provider |
| Authentication | Strong customer authentication inside the payer's bank | The payer's bank |
| Funds movement | The transfer travels on European bank rails | Banks and EMIs |
| Status normalisation | One vocabulary for every provider on the French route | viaBanking |
| Account credit confirmation | Read-only check that the amount reached your own account | viaBanking, via a licensed AIS partner |
Side by side
French payment habits against an open banking transfer
Row by row, what changes for the payer and for your finance team when a French business offers open banking beside the payment solutions it already runs. This table describes mechanics only. It makes no claim about cost, about chargeback treatment or about the legal character of either route, and neither one is presented as a substitute for the other.
| Dimension | Established French habit | Open banking transfer |
|---|---|---|
| What the payer already knows | Card details and a scheme authentication step | Their own bank login, used several times a week |
| Where the payer's data goes | Card credentials enter the merchant payment flow | Credentials stay inside the payer's bank |
| Amount ceiling | Set by the issuer, often uncomfortable on large baskets | Set by the payer's own bank transfer limits |
| Reference on the payment | Carried by the acquirer's payment services | Set by your system, travels with the transfer |
| Manual transfer alternative | Payer retypes an IBAN in their banking app | Beneficiary and amount arrive pre filled |
| What your finance team sees | An acquirer report on its own cycle | A confirmed credit event per payment on your account |
| Contract count | One per method, per provider | One API contract covering the routed providers |
- 2Payment routes in one checkout, card and bank transfer
- 1API contract behind the bank transfer route
- 1Confirmed credit event per payment, on your own account
Integration
Create, select, approve, relay, confirm
- 1
Create
Your backend posts the payment. No French bank specific fields exist in the payload, because the routing layer resolves them.
- 2
Select
The payer picks their bank from the French institutions the routed provider reaches.
- 3
Approve
The payer authenticates and approves the amount inside their own bank.
- 4
Relay
The licensed provider reports what the bank returned. viaBanking normalises that status and passes it on unchanged in meaning.
- 5
Confirm
The credit lands on your C2B account and the read-only check raises the event your systems act on.
Payload detail and sandbox keys are on the open banking for developers page, and the catalogue of open banking solutions we operate across markets is on the open banking solutions page. Each stage above is either a software service we run or a regulated service a licensed partner runs, and the table earlier on this page says which is which.
- OneAPI contract for the French market and the rest of Europe
- Read-onlyConfirmation of the credit on your own C2B account
- LicensedPartner institutions carry the initiation permission
- Nothing storedNo banking credential passes through our systems
Security and consent
Where the payer's trust actually sits
The bank owns the authentication
Your customer approves the payment on their bank's own pages, with the security method that bank uses. viaBanking never sees a code, a password or a device confirmation.
Consent covers one payment
The user's payment consent names an amount, a beneficiary account and a reference. It expires with that payment and grants no continuing access to anything.
Read-only, on your account
The account we watch is the C2B account your company holds with a bank or EMI. The check is read-only: viaBanking cannot manage that account, cannot send money from it and cannot change anything on it. Account information services of this kind are performed by a licensed partner, and the only account in scope is your own business account.
FAQ
Six questions from French teams
-
What does open banking actually give a French business?
A second payment route to sit beside the card. The payer approves a transfer inside their own bank, your system receives a normalised status and then a confirmed credit on your own account. For invoices and large baskets, open banking is a cleaner path than a manual transfer, and it produces payment data that reconciles automatically. A French business selling into other European markets gets the same open banking route there without a second integration.
-
How many French banks can a payer choose from?
Reach depends on the licensed providers behind the route rather than on us, and it covers the major French banking groups with a longer tail that varies. We check the specific institutions your customers use before you commit to a build, and we do not publish a coverage number the product has not confirmed.
-
Who initiates the payment in this arrangement?
A licensed PIS provider. viaBanking routes the request to it, translates the payload and normalises what comes back. We are a software company, we hold no AIS or PIS licence and we do not provide regulated payment services in France or anywhere else.
-
How does the payer confirm the payment?
Inside their own bank. They see the beneficiary, the amount and the reference, and they authenticate with the method their bank uses. That approval is the user's payment consent. Nothing is approved on your website and nothing is approved on ours.
-
What does a French company need on its side?
A C2B account with a licensed bank or EMI to receive the funds, opened directly between your company and that institution, and an engineering team able to handle payment statuses. The API integration itself is small. The account onboarding is the part that sets the calendar.
-
How long does it take to go live?
Sandbox access on the first day and a typical build of one to three weeks, depending on how much reconciliation logic your business connects to the credit event. Running France alongside Spain or Italy later is configuration on the same open banking API, not a second integration, which is the main commercial argument for a European route rather than a French one. The regional overview covering the rest of Europe is on the open banking in Europe page.
Add the bank transfer route to your French checkout
Tell us which French banks your customers use and what the basket looks like. We come back with live coverage from the licensed providers behind our routes, and with what the C2B account arrangement would be for your company. If open banking is the wrong fit for your French business, we would rather say so early than sell you an integration that competes with payment solutions already working well in your checkout. Companies expanding beyond France usually compare the French route against the wider open banking picture in Europe in the same conversation.
viaBanking is a software and technology provider. Regulated payment initiation and account information services are delivered by licensed partner institutions. viaBanking does not hold an AIS or PIS licence, does not execute bank payments and does not move funds.