For merchants selling in France, the way people pay should sit high on your agenda. Cards remain central to everyday spending, and one scheme plays a defining role in how those transactions move from checkout to settlement.
Cartes Bancaires is the dominant card payment method in France. It shapes how payments are authorised, routed, and completed across physical retail and e-commerce. For global merchants, understanding how Cartes Bancaires works directly affects acceptance, conversion, and customer expectations.
What is Cartes Bancaires?
Cartes Bancaires, often referred to as CB, is France’s national interbank card payment network. It was established in 1984 by the Groupement des Cartes Bancaires CB to standardise card payments across French banks.
CB operates as a shared scheme. Issuing banks and acquiring banks participate under a common set of rules that govern authorisation, clearing, and settlement for card payments made in France. For consumers, this structure is largely invisible. For merchants, it defines how a significant share of card transactions is processed.
Today, there are more than 77 million active CB cards in circulation. Cartes Bancaires accounts for over 65% of everyday card purchases and more than half of e-commerce card payments in France. As a result, CB remains the most widely used card payment method in the country.
How Cartes Bancaires works
Card types and where CB is used
Most French-issued debit and credit cards carry the Cartes Bancaires brand. These cards are used for both in-store and online transactions across France, covering everything from supermarkets and public services to digital subscriptions and cross-border e-commerce.
When a CB card is used within France, the transaction can be processed over the domestic Cartes Bancaires network. When the same card is used outside France, it typically relies on an international partner network, depending on how the card is co-badged.
Co-badging and network routing
The majority of French cards are co-badged. This means a single physical or virtual card carries both the Cartes Bancaires logo and an international scheme logo, most commonly Visa or Mastercard. More than 95% of CB cards are issued in this format.
In practice, co-badging gives flexibility in how a transaction is routed:
- Domestic transactions in France can be routed through the CB network.
- International transactions are usually routed through the co-badged international scheme.
For merchants, routing is important. Native CB routing follows domestic rules and fee structures, while international routing follows the rules of the global card schemes.
Customer choice at checkout
European regulations require that, for co-badged cards, customers must be given a choice of network when more than one is available. This applies in both physical and online checkout environments.
In an online payment flow, this typically works as follows:
- The customer enters their card details as usual.
- The system detects that the card is co-badged.
- The customer is prompted to select Cartes Bancaires or the international scheme.
- The transaction is authorised using the selected network.
Presenting this choice clearly is not only a regulatory requirement for EEA-based merchants, but it can also influence approval rates and transaction costs.
Where CB is accepted
Cartes Bancaires are accepted widely across France and form part of the baseline card infrastructure.
- In-store acceptance across French merchants is near-universal.
- Online acceptance is standard for French e-commerce sites.
- Government services, utilities, and transport providers routinely use CB.
- Subscription and recurring card payments commonly use CB routing.
When a French card is described as being “accepted abroad”, this usually means the transaction is processed via the co-badged Visa or Mastercard network, not directly over CB rails.
How to accept Cartes Bancaires
Confirm where CB matters in your business
Look at traffic, billing addresses, shipping destinations, and the issuing country of cards already used on your site. If France represents a meaningful share of demand, Cartes Bancaires should be treated as a core card payment method in France.
Select a provider that supports native CB routing
Not all providers process French cards in the same way. You should confirm that your payment service provider can route eligible transactions over Cartes Bancaires rails, rather than defaulting to Visa or Mastercard.
You should also understand how routing behaves if CB is temporarily unavailable, including whether controlled fallback to the international scheme is supported.
Confirm you do not need a French entity or local acquiring bank
For most global merchants, you can accept Cartes Bancaires without setting up a French legal entity or opening a local acquiring relationship. An international PSP can usually handle the acquiring setup and routing while you keep your existing business structure.
Enable Cartes Bancaires in your PSP configuration
Turn on Cartes Bancaires as a payment method in your PSP dashboard, or enable it through your API configuration if you manage settings programmatically. Check that CB becomes available for French-issued cards in both test and live modes.
If you are EEA-based, offer brand choice at checkout for co-badged cards
When a customer uses a co-badged card, you must give them a clear option to pay via Cartes Bancaires or the international scheme (Visa or Mastercard). Online, this is usually shown after card entry once the system detects co-badging, and it should be simple and explicit.
Set expectations for technical fallback
Confirm how your PSP handles temporary CB routing issues. Many providers automatically fall back to Visa or Mastercard routing when CB routing fails for technical reasons, helping keep acceptance high while maintaining a consistent checkout experience.
Benefits of accepting CB
- Higher authorisation rates: When transactions are routed natively through Cartes Bancaires, authorisation rates are often two to three percentage points higher than those seen on international card schemes. For merchants with significant France volume, this difference directly affects completed sales.
- Reduced authentication friction: Cartes Bancaires supports domestic authentication programmes such as Safe’R, which are designed around local card usage patterns. This can reduce unnecessary friction during checkout while remaining aligned with security requirements.
- Lower dispute exposure: Cartes Bancaires applies a different dispute model from international schemes. There are no scheme-level dispute fees, which can lower the operational and financial cost of managing disputes for French card transactions.
- Support for recurring payments and card updates: CB supports recurring and subscription payments, along with card lifecycle services such as Updat’R. These services help maintain continuity when cards are renewed or replaced, reducing avoidable payment failures over time.
Compliance and other considerations
Accepting Cartes Bancaires also comes with operational considerations:
- Co-badged card rules require transparent network selection for customers.
- Dispute handling differs from international schemes. Cartes Bancaires does not support commercial disputes or merchant-led fraud contestation.
- PCI DSS compliance remains mandatory for all card payments.
- Support for 3D Secure is required, particularly for e-commerce transactions subject to strong customer authentication rules.
Conclusion
Cartes Bancaires plays a central role in how card payments work in France. For global merchants, treating it as a standard payment method is often the right approach. Providers such as Antom support Cartes Bancaires alongside international card schemes, helping global businesses manage local requirements within a broader payments strategy.
