Crédit Agricole cards & Payments defines a new products and services offering using a process repository

What challenges did you encounter that led to modeling CACP’s processes?

There were 3 factors that acted as the catalyst for this. First, the compliance environment and new payment options considerably changed the circumstances of our core business. For example, the creation of the SEPA area (Single Euro Payments Area) aims to harmonize means of payment in the Eurozone.

This harmonization concerns all means of payment (bank transfers, credit card payments and withdrawals) and reduces delays in payment processing. For example, from now on, a bank transfer from France to Germany will have the same deadline as a national transfer.

Secondly, in 2012, we switched from being a GIE company, Cedicam – which only handles Crédit Agricole process payment - to Crédit Agricole Cards & Payments, which opens its activity to other banking and financial institutions.

Finally, we created a common platform to control the payment process value chain, which is our core business, and to mutualize the required investments in order to have a more competitive offering on the market.

What were the objectives of your process mapping approach?

We needed to transition from a GIE entity to a company proposing a coherent offering with clear products and services. If we wanted to open up and propose our services to banking institutions outside of Crédit Agricole, this coherence was fundamental.

Our approach required us to take a step back, so we could define our specific offering using a modeling tool that delivers accurate information. We wanted to build a repository of all our business processes on which all services could be based.

But beyond the repository, it was also necessary to ensure the coherence of these processes with business architecture, information systems, marketing, and business development in order to provide a real-time view of the organization.

Therefore, we reviewed each product with each stakeholder to set: the target, the positioning, the corresponding service agreement, quality criteria, etc.

Finally, identifying quality criteria was essential to answer the following questions:

Key Figures:

• €8.6 billion in financial transactions per year, representing 300 billion euros per day for issue and receipt transactions
• €2.01 billion in card authorization handled per year
• 79 million messages exchanged on SWIFT system (international flows)

Did you expect other results from your process mapping approach?

Yes, we had the benefits of a “classic” process mapping approach in mind. First, we expected a better understanding of all lines of business, which was particularly relevant for us because we started a transformation process. Moreover, process mapping with MEGA is a very good training and information exercise for new employees and providers.

We had repositioned our offering in order to be more competitive on the market, and it was very beneficial for us to put ourselves in the shoes of both customers and partners. Finally, the two most valuable business outcomes were the adoption of business process mapping and sharing of this information throughout the organization by the marketing department. MEGA’s central repository was the system of record and single source of truth for the marketing teams to define and update the new offering.

Before that, we used MEGA’s repository exclusively for functional and application architecture (functional and application layers) which answered the “how” question, not the “what” and the “why”. Going from a simple process description to a detailed analysis significantly helped us rethink the way we do business to make it more effective and customer-oriented.

How long did it take to prepare and populate the repository? 

We needed approximately 2 months to implement a working operational model (we quickly obtained an operating repository in our core business). Now that the map has been created, it is important to keep it updated on a daily basis - not an easy task with the pace at which our business is growing!

Sharing the information in the repository, as well as the updates, is key to making it useful to all the stakeholders. Updates to our process maps are regularly reviewed by trained ad hoc teams. A platform administrator is in charge of the global coherence of the MEGA tool, whereas we have defined external contributors who can feed content into the repository according to their predefined profile.

Download the PDF