Start & Pulse competition: Innovation and digital transformation at the heart of Crédit Agricole Consumer Finance's strategy.

Five calls for projects and five winners across Europe

314 start-ups signed up to take part in the inaugural competition. Following a pre-selection process based on the innovative nature, quality and relevance of the proposed projects, forty-nine start-ups remained in the running. Finally, after ‘pitch parties’ in which the start-ups tried to win over the juries, each of the five CA Consumer Finance entities that took part in the ‘Start & Pulse’ challenge named one winner.

• In France, Sofinco chose Onewave, a start-up that offers a universal smart card combining payment, loyalty and travel cards in a single digital format.
• In Italy, Agos picked Stip, which is developing a solution to automate and optimise customer service.
• In Portugal, Credibom opted for Doc-Digitizer, which specialises in automatic document analysis.
• In Germany, Creditplus selected Solvemate, a start-up that improves customer support by reducing response time.
• Finally, the Corporate Centre, the central body of CA Consumer Finance, chose Talentview. The start-up has redesigned the candidate recruitment process, developing recruiters’ employer brands using video.

“This initial programme has international scope, which has resulted in breakthrough solutions for our clients, partners and colleagues that have been developed through interaction, listening to others, and working together to create shared ideas”, explains Laureline Serieys, Chief Digital Officer at CA Consumer Finance.

The five winning start-ups in the Start & Pulse challenge presented their project at the Innovation Day, held on 5 and 6 April in Paris at the Village by CA, the Crédit Agricole Group’s start-up incubator, then in Massy at CA Consumer Finance headquarters. The event was also an opportunity to highlight the group's international reach within the start-up ecosystem, as well as being a chance to boost the winners’ visibility and promote both interaction between participants and cross-border synergies.

Digital acceleration at the heart of the CA Consumer Finance strategy

As a flagship component of its CA CF 2020 strategic plan, CA Consumer Finance has implemented a digital transformation plan designed to accelerate growth in this area, helping to provide even better service to its customers and partners. Optimised customer experiences, synergy development, simplification and diversification of our recruitment processes and encouraging teams to acculturate to an innovative mindset are all part of this major initiative, which is all about finding start-ups and establishing partnerships with them.

Watch the video charting the Start & Pulse competition:

One entity’s winner will be introduced each month on the Innovation and Digital Transformation news channel, where you can also follow them as they develop solutions which have tangible benefits to our customers.

• See the introduction to the first Sofinco Winner: One Wave