J.P. Morgan has become a principal member of leading French payments network Cartes Bancaires CB.

Understood to be the first US bank to hold principal membership, the American multinational said that having joined the payments network – which in France processes around 15 billion transactions per year via card or mobile phone – it intends to offer merchant clients payment transactions for those acquiring services of Cartes Bancaires by 2024.

“Our north star is to enable our merchant clients to offer their customers a varied choice of payment options to suit their needs,” said Ludovic Houri, co-head of EMEA payments & commerce solutions at J.P. Morgan. “Membership of Cartes Bancaires will help us take this to a whole new level in Europe and France in particular.”

Shahrokh Moinian, head of EMEA payments at J.P. Morgan added that joining Cartes Bancaires evidenced the company’s “unwavering commitment” to the European and French payment markets.

“Our EMEA franchise has gone from strength to strength in recent years, and this is a major milestone in our growth journey and wider ambition to become Europe’s leading payments provider,” he said.

J.P. Morgan’s continental European trading hub is based in Paris and it employs approximately 900 people in the country – a headcount it said is continuing to grow.

“The road that now opens before us will lead us to numerous projects, which will bring real added value to the entire CB community,” said Philippe Laulanie, chief executive of Cartes Bancaires, of the membership.

J.P. Morgan recently announced it would pay civil penalties of around $350 million in its native US over failing to report complete trading data to surveillance platforms.

The announcement was made in a regulatory filing, in which the it admitted that certain trading and order data through its Corporate and Investment Bank unit was not fed into its trade surveillance platforms – a regulatory requirement.

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