Regional considerations

Integrate Terminal in France

Stripe supports Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover payments in France. All transactions must be made in euros (EUR). To accept Terminal charges in France, either your platform account or connected account must be in France.

Reader software version

BBPOS WisePad 3 readers operating in France must use the reader software version 4.01.00.48_FR_v8_511001 or later. Read about BBPOS WisePad 3 software updates for details.

Cartes Bancaires payments Public preview

Cartes Bancaires is the interbank network that handles routing of debit payments in France. Consumer debit cards in France are branded with a Cartes Bancaires logo and might also be co-badged with Visa or Mastercard. You can process these cards using either Cartes Bancaires or the international network. If you are interested in processing transactions over Cartes Bancaires on your Stripe Terminal, please email us at terminal-cb-beta@stripe.com.

Enable Cartes Bancaires

French Stripe accounts can process Cartes Bancaires payments after providing their business tax ID in the Dashboard settings.

If you are a Connect platform, and your connected accounts don’t have access to the full Stripe Dashboard (includes Express and Custom accounts) you must request the cartes_bancaires_payments capability on behalf of your connected accounts.

Integration requirements

To accept Cartes Bancaires payments, you must use the BBPOS WisePad 3 or Stripe Reader S700 reader.

If you use the BBPOS WisePad 3 reader, you must use the following minimum Terminal SDK versions:

• iOS SDK 3.2.0: Released on 17 November 2023
• Android SDK 3.2.0: Released on 17 November 2023
• React Native SDK v0.0.1-beta.14: Released on 6 December 2023

If you use the Terminal JavaScript SDK or server-driven integration, you don’t need to make any changes.

The BBPOS WisePOS E reader doesn’t support the Cartes Bancaires network, and processes transactions from co-badged cards through only the international network.

Routing co-badged debit cards

Co-badged Cartes Bancaires cards support both Cartes Bancaires and international card networks. If your integration supports Cartes Bancaires, you can choose to process the payment directly through Cartes Bancaires or through the international network.

When you create a PaymentIntent, specify your choice in the requested_priority of the payment_method_options.card_present.routing attribute. SetupIntents, which collect card details without charging the card, always process using the international network.

Stripe Terminal provides default support for compliance with customer card brand choice. Customers who insert a co-badged Cartes Bancaires card into a supported device can override your priority selection and choose their preferred network routing option, as shown in the following image.

BBPOS WisePad 3

Stripe S700

Refund a Cartes Bancaires payment

You can refund Cartes Bancaires payments through the API or Dashboard. Refunds don’t require the cardholder to present their card again at the point of sale.

Identify the network

To identify which network a payment was processed on, inspect the network value of the Charge object associated with a successful PaymentIntent.

{
  "id": "ch_1Ff52K2eZvKYlo2CWe10i0s7",
  "object": "charge",
  ...
  "payment_method_details": {
    "card_present": {
      "brand": "visa",
      ...
      "network": "cartes_bancaires"
    },
    "type": "card_present"
  }
}

Provide receipts

For Cartes Bancaires payments, Stripe includes additional metadata in the pre-built receipts. For custom receipts, the following required fields are available in the PaymentIntent as soon as the payment is confirmed.

Use locations

Create Locations for your business with addresses in France and associate your readers to them. This will ensure that they automatically download the configuration needed to properly process charges in France. A valid address for a Location in France must contain the line1, city, postal_code, and country properties.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/terminal/locations \
  -u 
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
: \
  -d "display_name"="HQ" \
  -d "address[line1]"="19 Rue de Vienne" \
  -d "address[city]"="Paris" \
  -d "address[country]"="FR" \
  -d "address[postal_code]"="75008" \

Translation

Language regulations require that services, including point-of-sale services, be provided in French unless English has been agreed upon by the cardholder and their card issuer. Terminal is built to help you comply with these requirements if they apply to your business.

Default reader language

The BBPOS WisePOS E and Stripe Reader S700 support changing reader language in the Settings panel. Swipe right across the screen to access the Settings panel, and select your language.

The BBPOS WisePad 3 supports changing reader language directly in the reader interface. After you have registered your reader to a Location with an address in France, the reader installs a language pack relevant for your region if one isn’t already in place. To view available language options and to select a language, click the Power / Settings button and scroll down using the arrow keys until you reach the language selection menu. Highlight your desired language and press the green Enter key.

Other translations

If you’re required to provide services in or would like to translate text into French in addition to English, ensure that any of your custom reader screens and receipts display the appropriate translations.

Strong Customer Authentication

Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) is a European regulatory requirement to reduce fraud and make payments more secure. SCA is or will be required for customer-initiated electronic payments within the European Economic Area (EEA). For more information about this European regulation, you can read Stripe’s PSD2: SCA guide.

Transactions below 50 euros (or the local currency equivalent) are considered low value and may be exempted from SCA. However, banks need to request authentication if the low value exemption has been used five times since the cardholder’s last successful authentication or if the sum of previously exempted payments exceeds 150 euros (or the local currency equivalent).

In France, all transactions authenticated with a PIN satisfy the SCA requirements. The card represents the first authentication element of the transaction (possession) and the PIN represents the second (knowledge). Some contactless cards may support PIN validation with a single tap; however, others may require initiating an authenticated Chip and PIN contact transaction to comply with the SCA requirements.

If a contactless transaction isn’t eligible for an SCA exemption, the reader prompts the customer to enter their PIN or insert their card for a chip-and-PIN transaction.

You will see two charges associated with SCA-authenticated transactions. The first will be a soft-declined charge with an error message online_or_offline_pin_required or offline_pin_required, depending on the card’s capabilities. The second will be the authorized or hard-declined charge.