Bpifrance goes live on Thought Machine’s Vault Payments with SEPA Instant Transfers

By Gloria Methri

Bpifrance, France’s public investment bank, has successfully launched SEPA Instant Credit Transfer capabilities through Vault Payments, the cloud-native payment processing platform developed by Thought Machine. The move marks a key milestone in the bank’s broader payment infrastructure overhaul.

This implementation introduces SEPA Instant Payments as a new payment rail for Bpifrance, processed via TIPS (TARGET Instant Payment Settlement). It represents the first step in the bank’s planned migration from legacy systems, which will also include SEPA Credit Transfers, SEPA Direct Debits, TARGET2, and SWIFT-based transactions.

The bank’s transition to Vault Payments is part of an ongoing digital transformation effort that began in 2022, when Bpifrance adopted Vault Core as its core banking system. That initial move significantly increased operational efficiency, boosting speed fivefold, and enabled the rapid rollout of a commercial loan product. Building on that success, the bank selected Vault Payments to streamline and modernise its entire payment stack.

Remarkably, Bpifrance went live on Vault Payments in just six months. The implementation included customised enhancements to its TIPS payment flows and has already improved payment workflow automation and reduced manual exception handling.

Vault Payments is designed as a unified solution for processing all types of payments—from account-to-account transactions (such as instant, bulk clearing, RTGS, and cross-border) to card-based payments. It enables banks like Bpifrance to configure custom workflows, introduce new features independently, and innovate in areas like payment splitting, invoicing, advanced statements, and securities transactions.

This deployment not only enhances Bpifrance’s operational capabilities but also signals the growing momentum for cloud-native transformation in Europe’s public and commercial banking sector.

Paul Taylor, CEO and founder of Thought Machine, said, “Bpifrance is modernising at pace and migrating away from outdated technology. In 2022, they deployed our cloud-native core banking technology and are now at the forefront of payment modernisation by adopting Vault Payments. We are proud to strengthen our partnership with Bpifrance.”

Lionel Chaine, Chief Information Officer of Bpifrance, said, “Thought Machine is an integral partner in our mission to modernise our technology stack at scale. Payments should be fast, efficient, and streamlined—that’s why we chose Vault Payments. The platform provides the clean, modern, and configurable foundation we need to offer world-class banking and payments.”