(BFM Stock Exchange) – The Minister Delegate in charge of Commerce, Véronique Louwagie announced the main measures which must be included in the Reform Law of the restaurant title. A great fear of investors, the cap of restaurant titles commissions is not among these tracks.

Small “phew” of relief on the side of Edenred and Pluxee on the stock market. The actions of the two prepaid service securities issuers (restaurant titles, gift titles) climb 6.3% and 2.7% this Thursday, June 26, Edenred signing the highest increase in CAC 40.

The actions of the two groups react positively to the measures announced by the Minister Delegate in charge of Trade, Véronique Louwagie. In several interviews, notably on RMC and the Parisian, the member of the government has delivered the content of the future reform of the restaurant titles, which must be the subject of a future bill.

The Minister acts the disappearance of the title-paper title from 2027, and announces that the system can be used every day of the week, even on Sunday. The use of the restaurant-restaurant for food products, that is to say in supermarkets, will also be perpetuated.

Véronique Louwagie also called for the commissions taken by the issuers on the restaurateurs to decrease. “I intervened yesterday (Wednesday) with the issuers (…) to ask them to meet and make the levels of the commissions drop,” said the minister on RMC.

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No cap

However, the Minister does not intend to go through a cap, which constituted the great fears of investors.

“A cap of the commissions collected from restaurateurs is a measure that was not justified. First of all supervising prices in a competitive market, as is the case for restaurant titles in France, which has 15 actors, then has no sense. Then, I remind you that the competition authority, in a notice rendered in the fall of 2023, has spoken out of this measure”, reacted to News Bulletin 247, Ilan Ouanounou, Managing Director of Edenred France.

“In addition, it must be understood that the title restaurant provides an average of 2,000 euros in turnover per month to a restaurateur, while it costs him on average 80 euros per month. Lowering a percentage point the commission rate would only win 20 euros per month, that is not a central subject for restaurateurs,” adds the manager. “With the future passage from the text to the Parliament, the logic will be the same,” he warns.

Rather than a cap, Véronique Louwagie rather asks market players to arrive within three months of a charter of transparency on these commissions.

End of “end -of -year discounts”

The Minister also plans to prohibit the “end-of-year discounts which are paid by issuers on major accounts and which are passed on to restaurateurs’ commissions,” she said again on RMC.

“We believe that this is a good measure,” says Ilan Ouanounou. “Some major customer groups of the emitting emitters of restaurants were competing to obtain end-of-year discounts. This poses several problems, from a tax point of view for example, since employers benefit from exemption from charges on all of their expenditure in securities-restaurant while these are lowered via these discounts,” said the manager.

“In addition, if this practice was to increase, it would inevitably have an upward effect on the commissions billed to restaurateurs. The end of this system is a very good thing,” he insists.

Outside, commissions, the Minister intends to regulate the sector more, by creating an authorization of issuers of restaurants on which the Banque de France will issue an opinion.

“The market for the issue of restaurant titles is a market that has never been the subject of official authorization. However, this market represents 10 billion euros entrusted by companies to issuers so that employees’ money is argued towards restaurateurs,” explains Ilanounou, CEO of Edenred France.

“To ensure the proper functioning of this process, it takes players who have financial solidity and robust guarantees in terms of cybersecurity and risk management. The government therefore wanted the Banque de France to be able to give an authorization to the issuers, and this measure has meaning,” he adds.

Ultimately “all of these measures are rather favorable for Edenred or Pluxee, whether it is the absence of commissions cap or the authorization supervised by the Banque de France. The stakeholders understood that it was complicated to significantly modify the system of the title-restaurant which, in reality, works well”, explains an analyst.

Another analyst notes that at 25 euros, almost the closing course of Edenred Thursday, the market largely exaggerated the risk and the lack of visibility on the system of the title-restaurant in France, a country which represents around 14% of the operational turnover of Edenred.

A threat not completely distant

The two analysts warn, however, that the spectrum of a cable of restaurant titles could very well return to the fall, once the bill is discussed in Parliament.

“The question will be whether the restaurateurs will pressure insofar as the sustainability of the use of the title-restaurant in supermarkets will make them lose turnover. This is in any case the reasoning that investors have previously held,” warns the second analyst interviewed.

In the fall of 2023, the executive had envisaged a cap of the commissions collected from the merchants by the issuers of restaurants. The Competition Authority had then been questioned for opinion and had made unfavorable recommendations.

The authority believed that a cap “did not constitute the most suitable response” insofar as this measure “would not correct dysfunctions” and could have “counterproductive effects”.

This specter returned to haunt the market in March following press articles devoted to the reform of the restaurant title. The idea of ​​a cap had been attributed to the executive in an article before a new version of this article deletes this mention.

In addition to France, Edenred and Pluxe also face concerns about regulation in Brazil, a very important market. In Italy, the executive has set up a cap of the restaurant titles commissions, which will be effective this year.