BNP Paribas has agreed to acquire a 95% stake in the holding company of the startup digital bank Compte-Nickel, the French banking giant announced Tuesday.
Compte-Nickel, owned by Financière des Paiements Électroniques, offers real-time payments and has opened more than 540,000 accounts over the past three years, according to a press release from BNP Paribas. A new account with Compte-Nickel is opened in France every 30 seconds.
While Compte-Nickel is a digital account, its
As part of the deal, the companies extended the exclusive partnership between Compte-Nickel and the Confédération des Buralistes de France, an organization that represents 25,000 retailers in France.
Compte-Nickel will be operated independently, Thierry Laborde, group deputy chief operating officer for BNP Paribas, said in the release. However, BNP said that under its guidance, it has set a goal of a having 2 million customers for the digital bank by 2020.
“We will be making every effort to help Compte-Nickel improve the customer experience and foster its growth, while remaining true to its concept,” Laborde said in the release.