Crédit Mutuel Arkéa remains a driver of banking innovation

Onepoint, a strategic partner

For Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, eager to accelerate its digital transformation and strengthen its expertise in service platformization, this partnership with Onepoint is a real opportunity. As confirmed by Laurent Jurrius, Deputy Director of the Group’s Organization and Resources Department: “We are pleased to establish this strategic partnership with Onepoint for the creation of our new IT site based in the region. Together, we will create over 150 jobs to complement Arkéa’s expertise. These new talents will help continue the platformization of its system and identify value-creating levers for all its stakeholders: clients, administrators, employees, partners, local actors, communities, SMEs, mid-sized companies, and startups.”

The stakes are therefore multiple for this partnership in service of the banking professions of tomorrow. For Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, it means:

• The possibility to benefit from Onepoint’s reputation and knowledge in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region to create new jobs;
• Access to its expertise on specialized topics, notably through its technological excellence center and value-creation levers.
• For Onepoint, it’s an opportunity to be involved in a banking sector undergoing transformation, offering its talents for large-scale projects.

A Restructuring of the IT System for Innovative Products

Onepoint is supporting Crédit Mutuel Arkéa in restructuring its enterprise architecture: a new, modular IT system that is more open to external sources is currently being implemented. This system allows Crédit Mutuel Arkéa to benefit from coherence across all its IT sectors and agility in the face of changes in the banking market. Onepoint’s expert teams are accompanying the project through various technical tasks, particularly within the platformization process of development methods. This deep transformation aims to reduce the risk of obsolescence in the technologies used by the bank and standardize its global development methods.

Optimizing Web and Mobile Solutions for Crédit Mutuel Arkéa’s Clients

Offering innovative, high-performance, and secure products is essential for Crédit Mutuel Arkéa. Onepoint is leveraging the latest web and mobile technologies to deliver optimal digital products in terms of user experience and security for clients, employees, and partners of Arkéa.

A global overhaul of the mobile remote banking application is underway, transitioning from a hybrid app to a native language for iOS and Android, compatible across various operating systems and fully secure in terms of data.

The qualified profiles from both companies combine their expertise to enhance the technicality of online banking services:

• UX/UI Designers
• Technology Architects
• Cloud Developers and DevOps
• Agile Product Managers

For the web-based remote banking, a team of about ten Onepoint experts is working across four factories on back-end development (in Java) and APIs.

Optimizing Operational Solutions for Internal Teams

Onepoint teams are also working on optimizing technological solutions for internal employees of Crédit Mutuel Arkéa. They are responsible for the progressive maintenance of the CRM system. They are also involved in:

• Integrating an automated chatbot,
• Search and notification systems for banking advisors to assist in their daily tasks.
• Standardizing Development for Performance

A Platform for Development Teams

To accelerate the bank’s transformation and address its need for efficiency, Onepoint focused on studying the software development process. Several obstacles were identified, highlighting the need to centralize production and initiatives on a collaborative tool (“developer portal”) called Arkeastore.

This major project was launched in September 2020 and began with collecting requirements for components and building the initial teams to create them. This represents a true restructuring of development, with immense benefits ahead.

Transverse to the entire IT department, and based on co-construction, this functional and technical offering will allow each team to access a rich catalogue of solutions, facilitate visibility of the experiments conducted, and enable each developer to contribute their part to the whole.

Onepoint teams are thus working to improve the experience for developers tasked with developing for Crédit Mutuel Arkéa’s projects.

According to Benoît Defrance, delivery leader at Onepoint in Bordeaux: “The idea is to be able to share developments and increase productivity by avoiding each person developing separately. Our goal is to provide the best experience for the ‘squads’ (PO, Dev, Sec, Ops, UX) through a development component platform. The teams have access to and consume autonomously a set of resources and tools that help them achieve their business objectives.”

Thus, ArkéaStore will be the essential platform for developers and teams on a daily basis.

More than 100 components that make up the reference offering of the catalog are already available on the platform, with even more to come in the next few months, including business components and components specific to operations (Ops). Thanks to this solutions catalog, ArkéaStore will also be able to inspire other banks.

Improving Development

Onepoint experts began by driving the DevOps culture within Crédit Mutuel Arkéa’s technical teams. This movement aims to unify development and infrastructure operations, enabling rapid resolution of constraints. From the conception of a banking application, all stages of development are documented, and delivery happens progressively. All teams have visibility on the project, which can then be easily adjusted.

The result of this value-added contribution at the development level represents a significant advantage in the banking group’s future strategies. Ronan Barzic, Head of the Transversal Department at Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, specifically mentioned that the group wanted to involve the client more in the design of its products to implement solutions inspired by their feedback. In short, a user experience at the heart of processes, mobilizing agile and proactive development resources.

Humans at the Heart of the Partnership

“The technological support makes no sense without taking the human factor into account,” says Christelle Nedelec, leader at Onepoint, who works on change management aspects with Crédit Mutuel Arkéa. This human aspect of transformations is indeed what brings the two partners together. Increasing employee quality of life, contributing to local dynamism, and focusing on co-building projects are strong common values.

Recruiting the Talents of Tomorrow’s Bank

Crédit Mutuel Arkéa is tapping into the growing market of Nouvelle Aquitaine to find new talents who will occupy the roles of tomorrow’s bank. Onepoint supports and advises the banking group on its recruitment strategy in the region. To best welcome all new hires, Onepoint’s HR and communications teams support Crédit Mutuel Arkéa’s teams. This collaboration strengthens the bond between the two companies.

Proposing Optimized Working Methods

As stated by Ronan Barzic, Head of the mission for setting up the second IT site in Bordeaux: “Onepoint’s support allows us to establish lasting and stable working methods that bring us more efficiency in our daily tasks.”

Remote Work

Thanks to its expertise in collaborative work, Onepoint assists Crédit Mutuel Arkéa in optimizing remote communications. Beyond the current health crisis, all teams across the bank’s different sites need to be able to communicate easily and work effectively despite the distance. Onepoint has deployed a range of technological, immersive, and participatory tools:

• Interactive online workshops to facilitate exchanges,
• Fun and immersive games to get to know the workgroups,
• Manifestos to establish best practices for remote work,
• Communication and awareness materials (videos, posters, etc.)

Agile Methodology

Crédit Mutuel Arkéa has adopted the Agile methodology as one of its main managerial innovations. Rarely deployed end-to-end in the banking sector, this working method is governed by four principles:

• The importance of interactions between individuals,
• Focus on operational software,
• Adaptability to change,
• Collaboration with employees.

The goal is to empower teams and give them more autonomy to achieve their objectives, while delivering greater value to customers.

Leveraging its experience, Onepoint helps to promote and develop an Agile framework by deploying information tools, awareness initiatives, and ready-to-use kits.

Creating Adapted Workspaces

True work tools, the co-designed and shared spaces used by Onepoint and Crédit Mutuel Arkéa teams were designed to facilitate Agile methods. These varied spaces are equipped for meetings, productivity, focus, team cohesion, and creativity. They are also structured and equipped to meet the challenges of remote work. Onepoint encourages teams to take ownership of these work and living spaces, which can be adjusted according to needs.

A Promising First Year of Partnership

This first year of partnership has been marked by the launch of several projects, both technical and human, that are living up to expectations. As Ronan Barzic confirms: “Onepoint facilitates and accelerates our establishment in Nouvelle-Aquitaine. We benefit from their market knowledge to attract qualified candidates, as well as their technical expertise to optimize our digital solutions.” Indeed, by 2022, both partners expect to achieve their recruitment goal of hiring 150 new talents.

For Onepoint, the partnership is part of a long-term relationship: “We are proud to actively contribute, for several months now, to creating the bank of tomorrow. We have established strong foundations with the Crédit Mutuel Arkéa teams and a trusting relationship conducive to innovation and transformation. We share common values and strong commitments that aim not only to develop technological excellence around banking services, but also to rethink the employee experience, for example, by implementing solution platforms or workspaces tailored to daily use. We also align with Crédit Mutuel Arkéa in our commitment to energizing the local area in terms of recruitment, inclusion, and interactions,” explains Erwan Le Bronec, partner at Onepoint South-West.

There are still many challenges to overcome in designing the banking professions of tomorrow, and this collaboration, focused on value creation, has all the strengths to succeed.