Accept Cartes Bancaires payments with Checky Pro

Almost every French card is a CB card. Routing those payments over the domestic network is cheaper than sending them abroad — and more of them get approved.

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New here? Checky Pro is the payments & checkout platform for modern e-commerce — Cartes Bancaires is one of the 21 payment methods you can switch on today.

What are Cartes Bancaires?

Cartes Bancaires — CB — is France’s own interbank card network, and it is the reason French card payments do not behave quite like everyone else’s. More than nine in ten French cards are co-badged: one piece of plastic carrying both the CB logo and a Visa or Mastercard logo, with two sets of rails available to the same card number.

Which rail a payment takes is not the customer’s decision — it is your acquirer’s. When a French cardholder buys from a merchant whose acquirer supports CB, the transaction can run over the domestic network, under French interbank rules. When it cannot, the same card falls back to Visa or Mastercard and travels as an international payment instead.

That routing choice has two consequences worth caring about. Domestic CB routing carries lower scheme fees and domestic interchange, so the same basket costs less to accept. And because the authorisation is judged by the French network rather than by an international one, approval rates on CB rails typically run a couple of points higher — which on French traffic is usually worth more than the fee difference.

What Cartes Bancaires can do

Coverage, costs and capabilities. Every method page answers the same questions in the same order, so you can compare two methods line by line.

Coverage

Payment type: Domestic card network — debit & credit
Channel: Online
Consumer countries: France
Available for: Companies in the EU, UK, US & Hong Kong

Your company is registered in

Pricing & settlement

Processing fee: 2,95% + € 0,25Per successful transaction with EEA cards · +1% for UK cards · +1,75% for premium, business and international cards
Authorization fee: NoneThe € 0,25 is part of the price above — no separate fee per attempt.
Currency conversion: 2%Only when your customer pays in another currency than the one you are paid out in.
Settlement currency: EURPayout in GBP or USD is possible too, at the 1% multi-currency fee.
Settlement: 3–7 business days

Features

Refunds: Supported.
Partial refunds: Supported.
Recurring payments: Supported.
3-D Secure: Supported.The issuing bank decides when to verify.
Express wallet buttons: Supported.CB cards work in Apple Pay and Google Pay.
Multi-acquirer routing: Supported.Domestic CB first, with the co-badged international scheme as fallback.
Chargebacks: Supported.From € 25,00 per dispute. Domestic payments follow the CB dispute rules.
Chargeback alerts: Supported.

Prices follow the region above and come from the same rate card as the pricing page. They may still vary with merchant profile, processing volume and acquiring setup.

Why Cartes Bancaires, and why through Checky Pro

The top row is the method itself; the bottom row is what our platform adds on top of it.

More payments approved

Authorisation on the domestic network typically runs a couple of percentage points higher than sending the same French card abroad — on French traffic that outweighs the fee difference.

Domestic rates, not international

CB runs under French interbank rules, so the same basket costs less to accept than it would on the co-badged international scheme.

It is what French cards are

Over nine in ten French cards carry the CB logo. Supporting it is not an extra method — it is handling the French card correctly.

The domestic rail first

French cards go to CB before the international scheme, so you get the domestic rate and the domestic approval rate rather than the fallback.

Both rates published

CB is priced as an EEA card on the public rate card — a French CB payment is never charged at the international card rate.

Disputes handled early

Card issuers often warn us before a chargeback is filed. Refund inside that window and it never becomes a dispute.

How a Cartes Bancaires payment works

From click to balance — what your customer sees, and what happens behind it.

1
Customer pays
The customer enters a French card. Nothing about the form tells them which network will carry it.
2
Routed over CB
The payment goes to the domestic network first, under French interbank rules, with the co-badged scheme as fallback.
3
Bank verifies
3-D Secure runs when the issuing bank asks for it, in the customer’s own banking app.
4
Settled to your balance
Added to your Checky Pro balance and paid out in 3–7 business days.

Cartes Bancaires, answered

Still something open? The team answers on WhatsApp, usually the same day.

Do I have to offer Cartes Bancaires separately from Visa and Mastercard?

Not as a separate button. French customers enter their card as usual; what changes is that we can route the payment over the domestic CB network instead of sending it abroad on the co-badge.

Is CB cheaper than Visa or Mastercard?

It costs the same as an EEA Visa or Mastercard: 2,95% plus € 0,25. Routing over CB keeps French card payments on domestic interbank rules, which tends to raise approval rates.

Does routing over CB affect approval rates?

It generally improves them. A French card judged by the French network is approved more often than the same card judged as a cross-border payment — commonly a couple of percentage points, which on French traffic adds up faster than the fee saving.

What happens if a card is not a CB card?

It routes over Visa or Mastercard as normal, at the rate for that card. Nothing breaks and the customer sees no difference.

When do I receive the money?

Cartes Bancaires payments settle into your Checky Pro balance in 3–7 business days and pay out on your regular schedule, like your other card payments.