Thought Machine, the cloud-native banking technology company, today announces that Bpifrance, France’s public investment bank, has successfully gone live on Vault Payments, Thought Machine’s next-generation payment processing platform, for SEPA Instant Credit Transfer with TIPS.
Bpifrance is modernising its entire payment infrastructure, with Vault Payments at the heart of this transformation. The bank now processes SEPA Instant Payments—a new payment rail for the institution—on Vault Payments. As part of the ongoing modernisation, it will migrate SEPA Credit Transfers, SEPA Direct Debits, TARGET2 and SWIFT from its legacy systems.
Bpifrance began its partnership with Thought Machine in 2022, selecting Vault Core as its core banking platform. This move increased operational speed fivefold and enabled the rapid launch of a commercial loan product. Building on this success, Bpifrance selected Vault Payments to overhaul its payments stack. The bank went live into production in just six months, optimising payment workflows and implementing custom TIPS flow enhancements tailored to its needs.
With Vault Payments, Bpifrance meets the EU’s regulatory deadline to receive SEPA instant payments by January 9, 2025, ensuring compliance with the 24/7, 10-second settlement rule. Processing transactions within milliseconds, Vault Payments optimises time to market, enhances automation, and minimises manual exception handling. Its real-time tracking, configurable workflows, and native ISO 20022 support provide full payment lifecycle visibility while positioning Bpifrance for a smooth SWIFT MX migration and long-term innovation in the evolving European payments landscape.
Vault Payments is the industry’s first unified platform for processing all types of payments, including card payments (debit and credit) and account-to-account payments (instant, bulk clearing, RTGS, cross border). Designed for flexibility and control, it enables Bpifrance to configure custom payment journeys, introduce new features independently, and innovate beyond traditional banking services. Key capabilities include payment splitting, advanced statements, invoicing, and securities transactions.
Paul Taylor, CEO and founder of Thought Machine, comments: “Bpifrance is modernising at pace and migrating away from outdated technology.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, comments: “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."
Thought Machine’s technology is in production with the world’s most prestigious banks and fintechs, including Standard Chartered, Intesa Sanpaolo, Lloyds Banking Group, and many more worldwide. Last year, Thought Machine became Mastercard’s first and only strategic partner offering end-to-end core banking and payments processing solutions for financial institutions.
