RCI Banque


RCI Banque SA, trading as RCI Bank and Services and formerly known as Renault Crédit International, is a France-based international company that specialises in automotive financing, insurance and related activities for the Renault group brands globally; for the Nissan group brands in Europe, Russia, Asia and South America; for Mitsubishi Motors in the Netherlands. RCI Banque is a wholly owned subsidiary of Renault.

History

The company was founded by Renault in 1974 as the Société Financière de Renault or Sofiren, being intended as a way of financing sales for its dealerships and to manage the automaker's cash flow in Europe. On 27 June 1980 it was renamed Renault Crédit International. In 1990, it merged with Diac SA, a company formed in 1924 by Louis Renault as a result of the lack of liquid funds after the 1921 crisis and with similar objectives, but focused exclusively on loans for the purchase of vehicles. By 1990, RCI contributed with more than one-third of Renault group's net income. By the end of 1999, after the establishment of the Renault–Nissan Alliance, RCI acquired the five Nissan's financial affiliates in Europe for and expanded its presence in South and Central America to finance Renault and Nissan sales. In November 2001, the company was named RCI Banque. In February 2016, as part of a corporate image revamp, RCI Banque adopted the commercial name RCI Bank and Services. In January 2018, RCI Bank and Services moved its headquarters from Noisy-le-Roi to the 2nd arrondissement of Paris. The Noisy-le-Roi headquarters were kept by the subsidiary Diac. In February 2018, RCI Bank and Services' affiliate in the Netherlands announced it would finance Mitsubishi Motors sales in the country through a partnership with the local Mitsubishi financial affiliate.

Activities

RCI Bank and Services offers automobile financing lines, electric vehicle battery leasing contract, rentals with purchasing options, leases, long-term rentals for retail customers and services, such as maintenance, extended warranties, roadside assistance, fleet management, and credit cards.
The company also finances new vehicles, used vehicles, and spare parts, as well as short-term cash requirements for the Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi Alliance dealerships. It has subsidiaries in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Algeria, Morocco, Ukraine, South Korea, and the European Union and joint-ventures in Russia, Turkey and India.
RCI Bank and Services has developed online vehicle sales. In Brazil, 20% of the Renault KWID models sold in 2018 were booked online using RCI e-payment. Dacia customers in the United Kingdom have been able to finance and pay off the model of their choice entirely online since November 2018 via the Dacia Buy Online website. It is the first time that a fully digitalized customer experience has been proposed in the British market.    
In 2018, RCI Bank and Services sold 1.4 services per vehicle registered by the Alliance brands in its operating scope.
RCI Bank and Services is one of the largest issuers of auto loan asset-backed securities in Europe. In 2004, it had, together with the PSA Banque, a 10 percent participation, only behind Volkswagen and Fiat banks.
RCI Bank and Services continued to develop its e-payment offer in 2019. 400,000 transactions were realized by Alliance brands customers via the RCI e-payment solution, up 27.4% compared to 2018.

Acquisitions

RCI Bank and Services is looking to grow its mobility operations. In January, 2017, RCI Bank and Services becomes the majority shareholder of :fr:Karhoo a platform of integrated reservation which gathers companies of taxis and on-demand transportation allowing the end users to book, to modify, to follow and to pay their fares, and to reap the benefice of a choice of car fleets and services.
In September, 2017, RCI Bank and Services acquires Class and Co, the parent company of Yuso and Marcel.
On June 8, 2018, RCI Bank and Services acquired a 75% majority interest in iCabbi, a dispatch management company for automotive fleets of taxis and PHVs. This acquisition of a majority interest is consistent with RCI Bank and Services’ ambition to become a B2B mobility operator and position itself as a services provider for mobility professionals.

Innovations

RCI Bank and Services has joined “LaBChain”, a European banking-finance-insurance consortium dedicated to blockchain technology launched by the Caisse des Dépôts group.
In March, 2018, RCI Bank and Services throws a partnership with Octo Telematics to be able to supply telematic services and thorough analyses of the data to improve driver’s experience.

Savings

In February 2012, RCI Banque launched the ZESTO savings accounts, which were opened to a general clientele. This internet-based operation was the first of its type to be performed by an automaker's subsidiary in France. The launch was accompanied by a TV commercial from Romain Kunstlinger. The success of this initiative led to other automotive groups operating in the French market, as PSA Peugeot Citroën, to consider launching similar projects. At the end of 2012, RCI Banque announced plans to extend ZESTO to Germany. The German version of ZESTO was launched in 2013 and was called RCI Bank Direkt. In January 2014, ZESTO-Bank Direkt had over 136,000 customers.
RCI Bank and Services has rolled out a deposits collection business in four countries since 2012. At end-December 2018, net collected deposits totaled €15.9 billion, or 34% of the company's assets.
Deposits from retail customers in France, Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom and Brazil reached 17.7 billion euros at the end of December 2019 compared with 15.9 billion € at the end of December 2018 and representing nearly 35% of net assets at the end of December 2019.

UK subsidiary

In June 2015, RCI Banque's British subsidiary, RCI Bank UK, based in Rickmansworth, launched a savings account system in the United Kingdom, becoming the first car manufacturer-related financial company to do so. The newspaper The Daily Telegraph published a report on RCI savings by James Daley, the founder and managing director of Fairer Finance, a consumer group and financial ratings website. Daley criticised RCI, saying it did not have a British banking licence, was not a member of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme and its credit rating was BBB. Other analysts, such as Lee Boyce from DMG Media's This is Money, while also criticising non-membership of FSCS, praised RCI Bank's savings accounts for their accessibility and for pushing rival banks to offer better returns.
In March 2018 RCI Bank and Services obtained a UK banking licence, meaning its UK customers' savings are protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. UK customers are now protected by the UK's FSCS - which covers £85,000 per person per institution if a bank goes bust - giving customers certainty in the run-up to the UK's expected exit from the European Union.
In February 2017 RCI Bank and Services announced it had received more than £2.1billion of deposits from more than 60,000 savers in the UK since launching in June 2015. In 2018, the bank had 75,000 savers in the United Kingdom.
In 2017, RCI Bank was awarded as the "Best No Notice Account Provider" by the Moneyfacts Group.

Management

, the company is managed through an Executive Committee and a Board of Directors. Positions are as follows:

Executive Committee

RCI Banque's Diac sponsored the Renault Sport-assisted R5s and Clios of the Société Diac team, which competed in some events of the World Rally Championship and the French Rally Championship during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
On 24 March 2010, Diac and Renault F1 signed a sponsorship agreement which lasted from the Australian to the Monaco Grand Prix of that year. In 2017, RCI Bank and Services announced a new deal with the Renault F1 team from the Malaysian Grand Prix onwards.