Banking and Financial Newsletter – October 2026
| Banque Finance |
1. Banking services
1.1. Texts and Publications by authorities
– FR | Decree No. 2026-719 of 1 August 2026 | Consumer credit: enhanced traceability of creditworthiness assessments
Decree No. 2026-719 of 1 August 2026, adopted as part of the transposition of the European directive on consumer credit, strengthens lenders’ obligations when assessing creditworthiness. Lenders will now be required to document and retain, throughout the term of the credit agreement, the procedures, information and supporting documents on which their assessment was based, to ensure full traceability of the lending decision. The Decree also specifies lenders’ obligations to assist borrowers experiencing financial difficulties. Where a qualifying payment incident subject to reporting to the French national registry of consumer credit repayment incidents (Fichier national des incidents de remboursement des crédits aux particuliers, FCIP) is identified, the lender will be required to refer the borrower to an appropriate debt-advice organisation.
These new obligations will enter into force on 20 November 2026 and will require lending institutions to adapt their document-retention procedures, creditworthiness-assessment tools and payment-incident management arrangements.
– FR | Decree No. 2026-861 of 12 September 2026 | Early repayment: third-party charges excluded from the reduction in the cost of credit
Decree No. 2026-861 of 12 September 2026 specifies the charges that are not deemed to be imposed by the lender and may therefore be excluded when calculating the reduction in the total cost of credit in the event of early repayment. Four cumulative conditions must be met: the charges must have been agreed between the third party and the borrower, unless the lender required the involvement of that third party; they must be invoiced directly by the third party; they must be paid directly to that third party, including where the lender advanced the relevant amount; and they must not depend on the duration of the credit agreement.
The Decree therefore distinguishes between charges relating to a standalone service supplied by a third party to the borrower and charges that remain sufficiently connected with the credit agreement to be included in the basis on which the reduction is calculated. The mere fact that a service is performed by a third party is therefore insufficient to exclude the related cost. If any one of the four conditions is not met, the relevant charges may remain attributable to the credit agreement.
1.2. Case Law
– EU | CJEU | 10 September 2026 | Case C-510/25, T.Z. and D.Z. v Bank S.A | Void loan agreement: court-ordered set-off permitted subject to conditions
The Court of Justice held that Directive 93/13 on unfair terms does not preclude a national court, following a loan agreement being declared void, from setting off, of its own motion, the bank’s claim for repayment of the principal advanced against the consumer’s claim for repayment of the sums paid under the void agreement. The Court considered that EU law requires effective consumer protection and the repayment of unduly paid sums but does not prescribe any specific procedural mechanism for resolving the financial consequences of the agreement being declared void.
Such set-off nevertheless remains subject to strict safeguards. The court must preserve the consumer’s entitlement to default interest on any balance due to the consumer, provide the consumer with transparent information on the legal consequences of the set-off, and ensure that procedural costs are not such as to deter the consumer from exercising rights derived from EU law.
2. AML/CFT
– FR | Tracfin | September 2026 | 2025 Annual Report: sharp increase in suspicious transaction reports
In September 2026, the French Financial Intelligence Unit, Tracfin, published its 2025 Annual Report, stating that it had received 278,484 suspicious transaction reports, an increase of 32% year on year. Credit institutions, payment institutions and digital-asset service providers remain the main contributors. This quantitative increase nevertheless calls for vigilance regarding the quality of the reports. Tracfin reiterates that their value depends primarily on the proper characterization of the grounds for suspicion, the precision of the analysis and the description of the relevant flows, rather than on the mere volume of reports submitted. The report therefore underscores the importance, for obliged entities, of maintaining internal arrangements capable of producing sufficiently substantiated and usable reports.
3. Payments
3.1. Texts and publications from authorities
– FR | Banque de France | 9 September 2026 | Annual Report of the OSMP
The Observatory for the Security of Payment Means (Observatoire de la Sécurité des Moyens de Paiement, OSMP) reported that, in 2025, fraud increased by 3.8% to EUR 1.241 billion, while the number of fraudulent transactions fell by 7.6%. The payment-card fraud rate reached a record low of 0.047%, but fraud involving credit transfer rose by 37% to EUR 485 million, becoming the leading source of fraud by value.
Fraud involving manipulation now accounts for EUR 516 million, or 41.6% of total payment fraud. In response to the rise in fake bank-adviser scams, spoofing and other social-engineering techniques, the Observatory calls for closer cooperation with telecommunications operators and major digital platforms.