Our actions

For Groupe BPCE, the fact of being a Premium Partner of the Olympic & Paralympic Games Paris 2024, making a contribution going well beyond a mere commitment to public image and sponsorship activities, gave greater impetus to the Group’s ambition to become the benchmark banking partner of the sports economy.

For our country, the sports economy is a lever of economic growth. Staging the Olympic & Paralympic Games Paris 2024 helped develop all the dimensions of the sports industry in France as well as all the business areas involved in this global event.

Our Group mobilized its strengths to play an active role in this economic development through the support given to business organizations, local authorities, associations, and federations, and the financing provided for start-ups and dedicated SMEs. It also offered us an opportunity to rally the wealth of expertise of all our brands to ensure the operational success of Paris 2024 with the management of the payment architecture of the world’s largest ticketing platform, and the financing of infrastructure projects dedicated to the Paris 2024 Games or the renovation of several existing sports facilities. This commitment also, and above all, gave expression to our determination to be a partner of all our local and regional communities in France.

From now on, Groupe BPCE intends to contribute to the enduring legacy of the Olympic & Paralympic Games Paris 2024.

This is why Caisse d’Epargne launched the Le Pacte Utile (‘Useful Pact’) initiative, an engagement program designed to help make the savings bank useful for every individual and society as a whole with the sponsoring of athletes, the restoration or creation of sports venues, and support given to associations. In the space of three years, 121 sports grounds have been built or renovated under this program.

The wide range of areas of involvement also illustrates the strength of the commitment of all the Caisses d’Epargne to ensuring that their actions have a lasting impact on the future, and to highlighting sport as a driving force in the transformation of society. Banque Populaire has launched a legacy program, entitled Sillage (a ship’s ‘wake’ or ‘trail’), to help preserve aquatic environments. This commitment has found expression through a number of initiatives: an educational program, numerous awareness-raising actions during the Maxi Banque Populaire XI’s Ocean Relay within the framework of the Paris 2024 Olympic Torch Relay, or the sponsorship of World Clean Up Day to remove debris from the nautical areas of the Paris 2024 Games, such as Marseille’s Prado beach (sailing) or the Vaires-sur-Marne nautical stadium (rowing and canoeing) but also all the places where people practice nautical activities.

A partner of local communities for investment in sport

Groupe BPCE is the leading private provider of funding for sports facilities in France via the local authorities, which own over 80% of infrastructure for sporting activities. For example, Groupe BPCE has helped finance major infrastructure projects in France, such as the Maison du Handball flagship facility in Créteil in the southeast suburbs of Paris, the Paris La Défense Arena, or the Paris 2024 Olympic Village and Media Village in the Seine Saint-Denis département north of Paris. 

Sport & Performance Capital, a fund dedicated to sports start-ups

Sport & Performance Capital, an investment fund set up by the Caisse d’Epargne and Seventure Partners (an affiliate of Natixis Investment Manager), will be investing 80 million euros in high-potential French regional companies active in the sports industry, chosen on the basis of their innovative thinking or their specific know-how in the areas of sport or well-being.  Since its creation, the Sport & Performance Capital investment fund has already invested in 11 companies offering innovative products and services in the sports economy.

Groupe BPCE analyzes the sports economy in France

Within the framework of research carried out by BPCE L’Observatoire, Groupe BPCE publishes studies dedicated to the economics of sport. Through unprecedented economic, statistical, and behavioral analyses carried out by our economists, they aim to improve our understanding of the sports sector in France, to identify all its players, its economic stakes and its territorial specificities, and thereby contribute to its recognition as an important economic player.

Six publications are currently available. To discover all the studies dedicated to the sports sector:

The payment expertise of Groupe BPCE and Visa mobilized to ensure the success of Paris 2024

The Olympic & Paralympic Games Paris 2024 broke all attendance records, with more than 12 million spectators (the previous record dated back to London 2012, with 10.9 million spectators). To cope with such a massive turnout, the Organizing Committee decided, for the first time in Olympic and Paralympic history, to implement a single worldwide ticketing system.

In collaboration with the Olympic Committee of the Olympic & Paralympic Games Paris 2024 (COJOP) and Visa, BPCE’s Digital & Payments business unit, with its Payplug fintech entity, handled all 3 million transactions (from over 170 countries), with a quality of service that can be summed up in a single figure: the acceptance rate reached 98%, well above the standard of 92% in France.

At the same time, Visa (an official supplier to the International Olympic Committee) entrusted BPCE’s Digital & Payments business unit with the management of payments within the Paris 2024 venues during the 29 days of competition. More than 3,000 payment terminals were rolled out to approved merchants at the majority of the Olympic and Paralympic venues.

In the mean time, to enhance the visitor experience, tens of thousands of prepaid virtual Visa cards were issued and managed via another BPCE Digital & Payments fintech, Xpollens.

Groupe BPCE’s overall objective is to become the benchmark banking group for payments in the sports industry and major sporting events with a range of specific offers and services.

Entreprendre 2024, meetings with entrepreneurs throughout France

With the Entreprendre 2024 program, Groupe BPCE mobilized its efforts to ensure that the Olympic & Paralympic Games Paris 2024 would benefit local businesses, with a special emphasis on VSE-SMEs, and entities active in the social & solidarity economy (SSE). The aim of this initiative was to enable all these companies to join in the hundreds of tender invitations issued up until 2024 concerning a large number of business sectors related to infrastructure construction and the organization of the games.

Out of a total of 3,500 companies awarded tenders (individually worth more than 100,000 euros), 1,460 were customers of the Banques Populaires and Caisses d’Epargne, i.e. 42% of the total. It’s also worth noting – and a sign of our active presence throughout all of France – that 40% of these companies are based outside the Paris region*.

* Figures as at September 2023