The financial meltdown that occurred in September 2008 revealed an economic crisis that had been latent for several years. Crédit Mutuel, a mutual banking organisation, has shown great resilience during this very difficult period and has been protected by the services it provides to its members. It is the only French bank not to have had its credit ratings downgraded by the international ratings agencies during the last three years.
The group achieved total net earnings of over €3bn in the last financial year, an increase of 61 percent.
According to the bank’s chairman, Michel Lucas, “These results reflect the work performed by our elected officers and employees over more than a century. The challenge of our founders was to ‘help and serve.’ We set out to rise to this challenge year after year by focusing our efforts on client-members.
“Our cooperative business model and devotion to the mutualist values of responsibility and solidarity have established the Crédit Mutuel’s reputation over time,” he says. “The group once again reaped the benefits in 2010 of its commitment to providing a service to people and the economy. It has pursued a controlled growth strategy in France and on international markets, adding to its product offering and expanding its lines of business.”
With a group share of capital and reserves of €32.3bn, the group has a floor Tier 1 solvency ratio of 11.5 percent (an improvement of 0.5 percentage points). According to Standard & Poor’s most recent report on risk adjusted capital ratios (the Basel criteria approach), Crédit Mutuel is the best capitalised bank in France.
This financial robustness is a key factor in providing a measure of the bank’s lasting success and security for client-members.
It is accompanied by a dynamic sales momentum related to the quality, motivation and permanent training of its staff; a proactive organisation and the use of efficient tools; and a strategy based on proximity and trust.
Dominating the market
In 2010 the group focused its efforts on injecting dynamism into an increasingly diversified offering, and has seen strong growth in its lending and savings activities, as well as its insurance, online banking, video surveillance and telephony businesses.
Individuals, associations, professionals and companies (in France, one in every three companies banks with Crédit Mutuel-CIC) have benefited from customised advice on their projects. This service is strongly enhanced by the expertise and skills of the bank’s 76,000 employees and 24,000 elected officers.
The performance of the insurance business has once again illustrated the strength of the bancassurance historical business model created by Crédit Mutuel 40 years ago, which now benefits more than 11 million customers.
The group boasts 5,875 points of sale (85 more than in 2009) including 5,369 in France and 506 outside Metropolitan France. Total current savings held stand at €575.5bn – a year-on-year increase of 7.2 percent.
Loans come to a total of €323.1bn – an increase of 6.1 percent – providing the economy with a greater proportion of active support than that shown by banks in other European countries. The market share of the networks in France stands at 14.2 percent for deposits and 17 percent for loans.
Over the past three years the group has developed its interests in neighbouring countries:in Germany with Targobank, and in Spain via an agreement with the Royal Automobile Club of Catalonia and stakes taken in Banco Popular, Cofidis and Monabanq. As a result of this geographic expansion, the group is now the fourth largest provider of consumer credit in Europe.
Banking on the move
Since technological expertise is a key component of its strategy, Crédit Mutuel-CIC is continually strengthening its position in the fields of electronic payment services, flow management and mobile telephony.
The group is now the second most popular provider of electronic payments in France, with almost 20 percent of the global market; and the leading provider of payments made with affiliated merchants, with 2,350 million operations handled for a total of €106bn – 33 percent of the market. It is second in France in terms of issuing interbank cards, with 8.8 million active cards.
Crédit Mutuel was the first French bank to offer merchants secure payment services over the internet, as well as the first to test contactless payments via mobile phones and bank cards. Now, thanks to its NRJ Mobile, Crédit Mutuel Mobile and CIC Mobile brands, the bank plans to offer further innovative approaches to mobile payment.
The priority given to personalised customer services can also be seen in the bank’s residential and professional video surveillance packages, where it is the dominant player in France with a market share of 30 percent.
This positioning has helped to form the identity of a bank that stands out from the rest: Crédit Mutuel-CIC won first prize for the banking sector at the BearingPoint-TNS Sofres Customer Relations Podium and was found to be France’s favourite bank in the Posternak-Ipsos image barometer.
The group has a firm focus on serving its client-members, supporting companies that create regional employment and playing an active role in financing the economy as and where needed.
With retail banking at the heart of its activity, Crédit Mutuel marries the strengths of a cooperative mutual bank with deep local and regional roots with the power of CIC to gain national and international reach in all areas of the finance and insurance businesses.
