AUCHAN LIQUIDATES ONEY BANK DUE TO LOSSES

The Auchan retailer, which has been developing its own financial project, Oney Bank since 2013, made a decision to close it due to the unjustified costs and losses generated over the past two years. Experts suggest that Auchan will resume cooperation with financial structures that can offer more profitable interaction schemes and tariff policy.

It is noted that Oney Bank was the first to be directly connected to the Visa system. The bank was founded seven years ago by Gefirus. Its 60% share belongs to the bank Oney Bank SA, based in France. Another share of 40% is owned by the Credit Europe Group N.V Dutch financial holding. In turn, the majority owner of the French company is the Groupe BPCE banking group (50.1% share), and the last 46.2% share belongs to the Auchan holding.

According to experts, when creating its own bank, the Auchan Company planned to optimize its financial services for the clients of the retail outlets.

However, already in 2019, it became clear that the banking structure was generating losses. In the first half of the year, the assets were reduced by 7.5%.

Capital outflow from the bank continued this year. During the period from January to September, there was a decrease in finances by almost a quarter. If in 2019 the losses of a credit institution reached 18 million rubles, then this year they exceeded 56 million rubles only in the first three quarters.

It is known that the bank has already informed customers about the need to repay loans, since the previously issued Visa cards will now be blocked.

From now on, Credit Europe Bank will supply bank cards for Auchan stores and financial settlements will be carried out through VTB Bank. As a result, Auchan failed to become completely independent and enter the POS-lending market. It is planned to completely wind down the bank's activities by the end of the year.