BNP Paribas wants €1 billion more from mobility
“We don’t see any other player out there with a similar mobility offering,” said Thierry Laborde (pictured), COO for BNP Paribas, at the BNP Paribas Mobility Day, which was held in the new facilities of BNP Paribas Real Estate in Paris. A bold statement, and an ambitious one.
Ambition is what’s currently driving fast moves by big players – with famous names and deep pockets – in the mobility space. Société Générale, like BNP Paribas one of the crown jewels of the French financial world, has big plans with ALD Automotive, its car leasing and mobility arm. Car manufacturers like Stellantis and Volkswagen Group are eyeing opportunities too. And Tech players like Amazon and Google also want a big slice of the mobility cake.
Transversal mobility
With that in mind, Mr Laborde’s statement is bold and ambitious indeed; but it is also a confident one. BNP Paribas Group has a clear pan to accelerate its investments in new and existing mobility services, for both private and business customers. The aim is to increase the group’s revenue from mobility by €1 billion by 2025.
The key to that success will be cross-fertilization and a focus on transversal mobility, thanks to internal partnerships with the likes of Arval, the group’s long-term leasing company; Cardif, its vehicle insurance and warranty specialist; CIB, the automotive supply chain service partner; Leasing Solutions, the EV charging infrastructure subsidiary; and Personal Finance, the private leasing branch.
“By leveraging the transversality of our mobility initiatives, we can, must and will support the future of mobility,” Mr Laborde continued. In order to get there, BNP Paribas Group and its affiliates must succeed in answering the needs and expectations of their customers – customers whose mobility behaviour has been rapidly changing of late, due to the pandemic and the more recent supply chain and energy shocks.
Main initiatives
“On top of that, we need to support our customers with the energy transition and facilitate easy access to and easy use of a wide range of mobility solutions,” said Mr Laborde. Exactly that was the point of BNP Paribas Group’s Mobility Day in Paris – a showcase for the group’s main initiatives regarding smart mobility, including:
- a comprehensive offering of electric vehicles – covering not just the vehicle itself, but also financing, charging, and related services;
- a connected fleet offering via Arval Connect, which enables TCO optimisation and supports fleet electrification and utilisation;
- car-sharing, which is already available in 10 European countries, with six more to follow in 2023; and
- a variety of zero-emission mobility services, centred on the Mobility Hub, which allows employees easily book and activate their mobility mode of choice via an app on their phone. The Mobility Hub concept was recently inaugurated at Arval’s Paris HQ, and is currently being rolled out elsewhere – initially within the BNP Paribas Group itself.
It's good to see that BNP Paribas takes a holistic view of mobility, and includes essential concepts like sustainability and circularity – for example by looking beyond the first life of the mobility asset. Via its insurance affiliate Cardif and in cooperation with its subsidiary Icare, the group will support the remarketing and second life of vehicles.
- This will be done via Wylly, a soon-to-be-launched C2B auction platform, which will allow private customers to sell their used vehicles to dealers.
- Icare has also launched Easicare, a digital platform for BNP Paribas-affiliated dealers to anticipate the repair and reconditioning costs of end-of-lifecycle vehicles, which will be instrumental in setting the right resale price.
Added value
The next step in BNP Paribas Group’s mobility success story is not just to push these services onto the market, but also to ensure that its various subsidiaries and affiliates who are active in the mobility space join forces transversally, in order to create added value for the customer – as well as for the group itself, of course.
The target of generating an extra billion in revenue from mobility by 2025 certainly is ambitious, especially in an industry that is increasingly competitive. But with scale and funding key, and seamless service and user experience increasingly important, BNP Paribas Group is convinced it holds all the cards to play a winning game.
Image: Fleet Europe
