The Ticket Restaurant® card arrives in France!

Following the publication of the decree enabling the digitalization of meal vouchers, on March 7, 2014, Edenred France was given the green light to launch the Ticket Restaurant® card.

50 years after the concept was introduced in France by the Group, this country will have been its last major developed country where employees were given only paper based vouchers.
Edenred France now offers companies a three-year prepaid card, issued in the beneficiary’s name and reloaded by the company each month, equipped with a PIN-protected microchip and/or equipped with contactless technology (NFC), depending on the employer’s preferences. The card is accepted in Ticket Restaurant® affiliated restaurants’ and merchants’ usual payment terminals.

Streamlined administrative processes and time-savings for companies and restaurants

The transition from paper vouchers to the card will benefit to both companies and affiliated Ticket Restaurant® network. The card facilitates their logistics and administrative processes and thus reduces associated costs. The paper vouchers are here to stay; each company will be able to offer their employees the choice of either paper vouchers or the card.

For the affiliate, the card enables easier collection using their existing bankcards terminals, faster reimbursement and new value-added services such as better visibility for their restaurant on the website and the Ticket Restaurant® mobile app.

More flexibility and services for the employee

The Ticket Restaurant® card provides the user with additional flexibility by allowing transactions in the exact amount, within a limit of €19 a day and the available balance. The Ticket Restaurant® card comes with an extranet site that enables employees to connect their personal space, a text message-based service to check the balance at any time and dedicated customer service. A card-cancellation function is also possible in case of loss or theft. Finally, the Ticket Restaurant® mobile app, available for free on iPhone and Android, enables the user to establish the geolocation of the closest affiliated restaurants accepting the card and to consult their most recent transactions.

'Our primary goal is to support Edenred's 55,000 client companies as they make this transition, and to offer exclusive additional services to the 180,000 affiliated restaurants and the 1.3 million beneficiaries of Ticket Restaurant®. We are determined to make a success of dematerialization for everyone' declared Laurent Delmas, Managing Director for Edenred France.

The Ticket Restaurant® card now joins the ranks of Edenred’s existing digital solutions in France, such as: 

• Ticket Clean Way®, an online platform paired with dry-cleaner prepaid cards for uniform and protective equipment cleaning;
• Ticket CESU online - Universal service employment, an e-voucher platform to pay home services;
• Ticket Kadéos® Universel et Ticket Kadéos® online, a prepaid MasterCard gift card and a 100% web-based voucher, for companies to motivate and reward employees, distributors, partners and customers

The shift to digital media, a source of innovation for the benefit of all

Through the collection and analysis of transaction data, the shift from paper to digital media enable Edenred to create and offer new solutions and additional services to its clients, beneficiaries and affiliates, and opens up new growth opportunities for the Group.

Read the press release