RCI Banque

History

The company was founded by Renault in 1974 as the Société Financière de Renault or Sofiren, being intended as a way of financing sales for its dealerships and to manage the automaker's cash flow. On 27 June 1980 it was renamed Renault Crédit International (RCI). In 1990, it merged with Diac (Diffusion Industrielle et Automobile par le Crédit) SA, a company formed in 1924 by Louis Renault as a result of the lack of liquid funds after the 1921 crisis and with similar objectives, but focused exclusively on loans for the purchase of vehicles (today Diac operates as a RCI Banque's wholly owned subsidiary). By 1990, RCI contributed with more than one-third of Renault group's net income. In November 2001, the company was named RCI Banque. In February 2016, as part of a corporate image revamp, RCI Banque adopted the commercial name RCI Bank and Services.

Activities

RCI Bank and Services offers automobile financing lines (11.09 billion euros in financing and 1,024,771 vehicles at the end of 2011), insurance (2.5 million active insurance policies at the end of 2011) and related services, including car loans (used and brand-new), rentals with purchasing options, leases, long-term rentals for retail customers and services, such as maintenance, extended warranties, roadside assistance, fleet management, and credit cards.

The company also finances new vehicles, used vehicles, and spare parts, as well as short-term cash requirements for the Renault-Nissan Alliance dealerships. It has subsidiaries in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Algeria, Morocco, Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, South Korea, and the European Union.

RCI Bank and Services is one of the largest issuers of auto loan asset-backed securities in Europe. In 2004, it had, together with the PSA Banque, a 10 percent participation, only behind Volkswagen and Fiat banks.

ZESTO

In February 2012, RCI Banque launched the ZESTO savings accounts, which were opened to a general clientele. This internet-based operation was the first of its type to be performed by an automaker's subsidiary in France. The launch was accompanied by a TV commercial from Romain Kunstlinger. The success of this initiative led to other automotive groups operating in the French market, as PSA Peugeot Citroën, to consider launching similar projects. At the end of 2012, RCI Banque announced plans to extend ZESTO to Germany. The German version of ZESTO was launched in 2013 and was called RCI Bank Direkt. In January 2014, ZESTO-Bank Direkt had over 136,000 customers.

In June 2015, RCI Banque's British subsidiary, RCI Bank, launched a savings account system in the United Kingdom, becoming the first car manufacturer-related financial company to do so. The newspaper The Daily Telegraph, published a report on RCI savings by James Daley, the founder and managing director of Fairer Finance, a consumer group and financial ratings website. Daley criticised RCI by saying that it does not have a British banking licence, is not a member of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) and its credit rating is BBB. Other analysts, as Lee Boyce from DMG Media's This is Money, while also criticising the non-membership to FSCS, praised the RCI Bank's savings accounts for their accessibility and for pushing rival banks to offer better returns.

Executive Committee

Board of Directors

Sponsorship

RCI Banque's Diac sponsored the Renault Sport-assisted R5s and Clios of the Société Diac team, which competed in some events of the World Rally Championship and the French Rally Championship during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

On 24 March 2010, Diac and Renault F1 signed a sponsorship agreement which lasted from the Australian to the Monaco Grand Prix of that year.