Open Banking Implementations in Europe and Africa: The Story of Société Générale (So Far)

Investment and retail bank Société Générale has its headquarters in Paris, France plus 45 branches in 36 countries, representing over 18 million customers globally. Retail banking services support 3 business lines in the regions of Europe, Africa, and the Mediterranean, and Russia. Their 2020 strategic plan is simply named “Transform to Grow.” Open is the keyword here. “We want an open approach to develop offers and client satisfaction,” says Jean-Louis Rocchisani, enterprise architect at Société Générale.

The Transformative Powers of Open Banking

Open banking plays a crucial role in Société Générale’s transformative approach to business growth. Their open banking journey started in 2015, having recognized the opportunities it presents for improving the time-to-market and reforming their business model. Their open banking efforts have not passed unnoticed. Recently, Société Générale was selected as the most advanced company out of 44 listed companies in the French market. After investing in the needed architecture, Société Générale now looking to extend towards the bank as a platform model.

Société Générale also sees the transformative power of technology and APIs in its future. “We’re currently in the proprietary model, but we see the opportunities to increase our distribution power by creating a smooth digital end-to-end process,” says Jean-Louis. “We’re also looking to monetize our services and most importantly, create interactions between service producers and customers - which is also quite hard to launch. But this is possible because we have APIs as a product.”

Société Générale is guided by open banking drivers in the many parts of the world that they operate in. These include PSD2 compliance and beyond in Europe, modernizing B2B2C models, and enhancing digital banking services (as is the case in Africa). Community plays a central role in Société Générale’s open banking efforts, as markets are different and evolving across countries, and working with local communities of financial service providers is essential.

How Société Générale Came Across WSO2 Open Banking

Société Générale and WSO2 have a strategic partnership that dates back to 2015, ever since the first successful implementation. Their first success story and the fact that WSO2 is open source were major deciding factors for Société Générale. SOSMART is the acronym for Société Générale’s architecture principles which are sustainable, open, modular and real-time, and API first. They were looking for a technology partner who would accompany them for the entirety of their open banking journey. WSO2 Open Banking provides the technology for open APIs, secure integration with banks and third parties, and integration analytics capabilities. “WSO2 has innovative products, efficient people, and a shared vision with us,” explains Jean-Louis.

Use Cases From Africa and Europe

Germany: This was the first use case implemented by Société Générale and is centered on equipment finance, financing for big customers through vendors. This project began by implementing a B2B2C platform using WSO2 Open Banking, using the support from local vendors. This platform is now extended to include international vendors as well, using a federated model rather than a shared one to improve its efficiency.

Czech Republic: A large bank in the Czech Republic needed to leverage PSD2 towards open APIs, using WSO2 Open Banking. The bank is now working with fintech developers and partners in the country, using the API platform which was launched. This bank is looking to close the gap between iteration and deployment and they’re satisfied with their progress so far.

Africa: Société Générale works on innovations to digital and mobile banking rather than regulatory compliance in their African business operations. They currently have 12 banks in Africa, all of whom are different despite sharing the same core banking system and are therefore difficult to scale use cases from one country to another. An API layer has reduced the time to market, and the next stage is to open this platform to fintechs and other service providers in the ecosystem.

France: Société Générale’s French overseas territories banks have to achieve PSD2 compliance. In spite of the tight deadline, Société Générale believes this can be achieved on time and are using WSO2 Open Banking to speed up the implementation.

What’s Next?

With experience gained from a string of successes, Société Générale has more exciting projects lined up together with WSO2 Open Banking. For Jean-Louis, technology is an enabler (and not a constraint) and he says, “We believe in an interoperable world, where technology opens up possibilities leading to more success stories.”

Listen to Jean-Louis’s complete presentation in this video.

WSO2 Open Banking helps you achieve regulatory compliance in Europe and Australia, with successful use cases from around the world. Learn all about its capabilities here.