Groupement des Cartes Bancaires CB

What it does

Groupement des Cartes Bancaires CB is a French groupement d'interet economique owned by the banks and payment institutions that issue and acquire CB cards, so it is carried by its members rather than by selling to the public. The Autorite de la concurrence's decision 11-D-11 of 7 July 2011 describes it as created in France in 1984 to give card payments better conditions of interoperability and security, bringing together credit institutions and, more generally, any institution authorised to provide payment services, and counted about 140 CB members at that date. The same decision records that the Conseil de Direction is charged with fixing the detailed pricing of the services falling within the object of the Groupement, and that the Ordinary General Assembly rules on the general billing principles of the CB system, which is the mechanism through which members pay for what the Groupement does for them. It also sets the CB interbank payment and withdrawal commissions, but those flow between member banks and are not the Groupement's own receipts. Its 2025 activity report adds a group dimension: this work is conducted in close collaboration with the Groupe CB (CBI) subsidiaries, named there as Elitt, FrenchSys and CB2i, which carry out the operational implementation.