Abstract (EN)

The US bank Citigroup1 maintains that the bank of the future will be a platform and is actively preparing for this eventuality. The most striking example of this change of tack is CitiDirectBE, which aims to provide a number of services to Citigroup’s institutional clients, including online treasury and trade services. Citigroup is not the only banking group to view its future in this way, but not all are moving at the same pace. ING intends becoming “the Spotify of banking”, by speeding up its technological transition and emphasizing its flexibility and adaptability and its experience of digital banking. French banks too are making headway and have recently increased their advertising and investment in digital banking. The challenge is to be present “anytime anywhere” and to be able to respond individually to every customer. These examples, while symbolically interesting, underline the need to define a platform in economics before we can consider what a banking platform might be. Taking advantage of smartphone use to add a new distribution channel is only a partial approach and does not amount to creating a platform, at least not in terms of economic theory and managerial practices. Rather than talking about the “uberization” of banking, which is reductive and somewhat off topic, it is rather a question of addressing the “platformization” of banking and its possible effect on the entire value chain and in particular on the management of payment methods.It is essential first of all to define and present the idea of a platform in economics. This notion is quite recent and draws on two theoretical currents: first, the theory of networks in economics and, second, the two-sided market approach in industrial economics. The first is concerned with the process of economic intermediation between producers and users of a good or a service. It focuses on regulation as well as the problems of optimizing the externalities produced by these networks and their capacity to attract suppliers and demanders. The two-sided markets approach focuses more specifically on the structure of these markets and pricing on each side of the market.A platform therefore has a much broader meaning than that used by Citigroup or ING. Once organizations adopt a platform, it implies a profound change in the structure of their markets and governance. An organization that decides to develop one of its activities in the form of a platform would be making a basic strategic mistake if it were to view it simply as the diversification of its distribution channels. The fact that customers can contact their bank via smartphone as well as by computer or through the relationship with their bank branch does not constitute a platform positioning. Similarly, the mushrooming of fintech in recent years should not be analysed in terms of the creation of new products or distribution channels. Rather, it points to the emergence of platforms that call into question the use of money, through new means of payment, and more generally of banking and financial services for which technical expectations are moderate. Indeed, we will see that banking businesses such as investment and finance, which are more complex, involve a relationship that it is difficult to reduce simply to digital contact. The behaviour of private individuals in their relationship with a commercial bank is different to that of multinationals using the sophisticated services of an investment bank.