OSCAMPS Cartographie des moyens de paiement
The Cartographie des moyens de paiement is the return that tells the Banque de France what your payment business actually looks like. Not what you are authorised to do — what you did: how many transfers, how many card payments, in which channels, with which counterparties, over six months. It is the French leg of the ECB payment statistics, it is half-yearly, and it comes with a derogation regime, a set of pre-zeroed XML files and one import behaviour that silently destroys work. This piece sets out who is caught, what the return is built on, how the OSCAMPS channel handles it, and where the traps sit.
1. Who is caught
The Banque de France defines the reporting population for this collection broadly, and the second limb is the one foreign groups miss. Subject to the collection are credit institutions, payment institutions, electronic money institutions and account information service providers that are either:
- governed by French or Monegasque law and authorised in France or Monaco; or
- governed by foreign law, entitled to operate on French territory and established there — that is, present in France in the form of a branch.
The institutions listed in Article L. 518-1 of the Code monétaire et financier are also in scope — the Treasury, the Banque de France, La Poste under Article L. 518-25, the two overseas issuing institutes and the Caisse des dépôts et consignations.
The scoping line for a passporting firm is therefore establishment, not activity. An EU payment institution serving French customers purely under freedom of services is not caught by this collection; the moment it opens a French branch, it is. That is a single corporate decision flipping a recurring statistical obligation on, and it is worth naming explicitly in a branch business case.
2. What the return is built on
Since 1 January 2022 the collection incorporates the requirements of the ECB payment statistics framework as amended — Regulation (EU) 2020/2011 (ECB/2020/59), which amended Regulation (EU) No 1409/2013 on payments statistics. The practical consequence of that amendment is a substantially wider and more granular data set than the pre-2022 French collection: more instrument breakdowns, more channel and initiation detail, and counterparty-side splits that many internal payment ledgers were never designed to produce.
From 1 January 2023 the declaration is half-yearly. The Banque de France maintains versioned documentation for each data period — a guide de remplissage setting out what each question means, and a contrat d’interface remettant defining the file structure — with distinct sets for data from 2023 and 2024, from 1 January 2025 and from 1 July 2026. For periods up to and including 2022 the documentation is no longer published and has to be requested from the collection mailbox.
Two consequences for anyone building this once and leaving it: the question set is not stable across periods, and the interface contract is versioned alongside it. A mapping built against the 2023–2024 contract is not automatically valid for a 2025 or 2026 reference period.
3. The derogation, and who should ask for it
Not every institution files the full return. The possibility of reporting under modalités allégées is offered subject to an activity threshold, under the derogation provision of the ECB regulation. Where the Banque de France grants a derogation, two things change together: the data is collected at lower granularity, and it is collected once a year instead of half-yearly. Derogation requests are made by email, and the Bank publishes a separate guide and interface contract for the lightened version.
The corollary matters just as much: a derogation is tied to an activity threshold, so it is not permanent. A firm growing through the threshold moves from an annual, coarse return to a half-yearly, granular one, and the build that was deferred by the derogation lands at that point.
4. The OSCAMPS channel
Cartographie is filed through ONEGATE–OSCAMPS, the Banque de France collection window for payment-means surveys. Enrolment for OSCAMPS differs from other ONEGATE collections in ways worth knowing before the account request:
| Field | What OSCAMPS expects |
|---|---|
| Identifier | A nominative, professional email address. The Bank states explicitly that a personal address is not acceptable |
| Accreditation code | None — there is no accreditation code for OSCAMPS collections; the box is left alone |
| Collection | “OSCAMPS France” |
| Declarant type | LEI |
| Declarant code | The 20 characters of the LEI |
| Certificate | Not required — the OSCAMPS collection portal is reached without an authentication certificate |
The LEI requirement is the one that reshapes a project plan. If the French branch does not yet hold an LEI, or holds one that is lapsed, the account cannot be created at all — and LEI issuance and renewal run on their own timetable, outside the reporting team’s control.
Each survey sits under its own domain code. Cartographie appears as OCA (enquête Cartographie2) in the standard version and OCD in the lightened, derogated version; the sister fraud survey is OFR and OFD. Related surveys in the same family carry codes of their own — OSB for the cheque security reference, OBO for the payment-security observatory collection, OBR for the refund-refusal notifications and OCT for the quarterly declaration of operations involving non-MFIs. Picking the wrong domain is a wasted campaign window, not an error message.
5. Pre-zeroed XML files, and the import that erases
Institutions offering only a narrow band of payment services — money remittance only, or card services only — face a questionnaire in which most mandatory questions are answerable only as zero. The Banque de France publishes, inside each collection’s interface contract, XML files pre-initialised to zero so that those mandatory questions can be pre-populated rather than keyed one by one.
They come with a warning that deserves to be a procedure rather than a footnote: importing an XML file into ONEGATE cancels any entries previously made for the corresponding surveys. The import is a replacement, not a merge. A team that keys the handful of live figures first and then imports a zeroed template to fill the rest has just deleted its own work, and the portal will not flag it — the result is a structurally valid, entirely zero return.
The correct order is the reverse: import the zeroed file first, then key the real figures over it. The Bank publishes a short operating note for exactly this sequence.
6. Three scenarios
Scenario 1 — the branch that thought FoS was enough. An EU payment institution has served French customers under freedom of services for two years and opens a Paris branch in March. Facts to rule: the collection catches foreign-law institutions established in France in branch form. What the reporting lead does: raise the OSCAMPS obligation in the branch business case, confirm the branch’s LEI exists and is current, and request the ONEGATE account at establishment rather than at the first campaign. Outcome: the first half-yearly return is filed on time. The failure mode is a first contact from the Banque de France that arrives as a late-filing chase.
Scenario 2 — the zeroed file that ate the return. A remittance-only firm keys its four live figures into the Cartographie questionnaire, then imports the pre-zeroed XML to satisfy the remaining mandatory questions. Facts to rule: an XML import cancels prior entries for the corresponding surveys. What the analyst does: import first, key second, and re-read the questionnaire after import rather than after keying. Outcome: a return with four real numbers in it. The failure mode is a clean, accepted, all-zero submission that nobody notices until the next campaign.
Scenario 3 — the intra-group entries that were not payments. A firm’s ledger records internal transfer and direct-debit entries generated as by-products of intra-bank operations, and the extraction picks them up as customer payments. Facts to rule: the Bank’s guidance states that where intra-bank operations lead to related entries being recorded in information systems, those related entries are not to be treated as customer payments and are not to be declared in the Cartographie questionnaire. What the analyst does: exclude them at the extraction layer, and document the exclusion rule so the next reference period reproduces it. Outcome: volumes that reconcile to customer activity. The failure mode is a volume series that steps up for no commercial reason and invites a query.
7. Running the campaign
Campaign launches are communicated rather than discovered. The main banking groups are told the collection dates at an interbank meeting; roughly ten days before a campaign opens, a letter goes to the responsible director of each declaring institution, using the contact details declared to the ACPR — the Banque de France’s reference being the ACPR’s REGAFI file as at 31 December of the previous year. Operational staff who registered in ONEGATE–OSCAMPS in the previous year additionally receive an email with the dates.
Two practical points follow. Stale REGAFI details mean the launch letter goes to the wrong person, and the operational contact route only works if someone declared themselves last year. At the opening of a declaration, the operational staff in charge should record their contact details in each questionnaire — a maximum of two per questionnaire.
The data-entry window is generous but not continuous: ONEGATE–OSCAMPS is open for entry from 04:00 to midnight every day except Sunday. Technical support runs Monday to Friday, 08:00 to 19:00, by email and on 01 42 92 60 05.
Are we in scope if we passport into France without a branch?
Not for this collection. The population is French and Monegasque authorised institutions plus foreign-law institutions established in France as branches. Freedom-of-services provision without establishment does not bring an institution into the Cartographie population.
How often is the return due?
Half-yearly for data from 1 January 2023 onwards. Institutions that obtain a derogation on activity-threshold grounds report once a year instead, at lower granularity.
Do we need a certificate to file?
No. The OSCAMPS collection portal is reached without an authentication certificate; the reporter account is created and accredited online. Note that some other ONEGATE collections do require one.
Why does OSCAMPS ask for an LEI?
Because the declarant type for OSCAMPS enrolment is LEI, and the declarant code is the 20-character LEI itself. Without a current LEI for the reporting entity, the account cannot be created.
Can we file the same return for Cartographie and Fraude?
No. They are separate surveys under separate domain codes, with separate filling guides and interface contracts, even though they are collected in the same campaign and rest on the same ECB regulation.
8. What to do, today
- Test scope on establishment, not on activity: a French branch brings this obligation, freedom of services does not.
- Confirm the reporting entity’s LEI is issued and current before requesting the OSCAMPS account — it is the declarant code.
- Ask about the derogation if activity is low. It converts a half-yearly granular return into an annual coarse one, and it is granted on request, not automatically.
- Write the import-then-key order into the procedure, because an XML import erases prior entries for that survey.
- Check the REGAFI contact details the ACPR holds for your institution — that is where the campaign launch letter is sent.
- Re-read the guide de remplissage and interface contract for the version covering your reference period, not the one you built against.
Related: ONEGATE — the Banque de France reporting channel · OSMP — French payment fraud statistics · The French reporting calendar for a payment firm · Carte de Visite Fonctionnelle
