🗂️ France’s CFONB bank file formats

Overview: the legacy of French bank file transfer

As early as the 1980s, the CFONB (Comité français d’organisation et de normalisation bancaires, France’s banking standards body) standardized a set of fixed-position exchange formats. Each data item occupies specific columns in a fixed-length record. These formats originally traveled over ETEBAC (discontinued in 2011 and replaced by EBICS), and in 2026 they still carry a large share of bank-to-corporate traffic in France.

CFONB120 structure: four record types

A CFONB120 file is a sequence of records of exactly 120 characters, with no field separators: only position matters. For each account and each day, the sequence is one 01 record (opening balance), zero to n 04 transaction records, each optionally followed by 05 supplementary records, then one 07 record (closing balance). A single file can chain several accounts and days.

• 01 (Opening balance): repeats the previous day’s closing balance.
• 04 (Transaction): one entry, with dates, operation code, description, signed amount, and reference.
• 05 (Supplementary information): 0 to n per transaction, each with a qualified field (LIB additional description, RCN SEPA customer reference / EndToEndId, MMO original foreign-currency amount, and so on).
• 07 (Closing balance): the day’s closing balance, which becomes the next day’s 01.

AFB interbank operation codes

The two-character code in positions 33–34 identifies the type of transaction, based on the interbank table maintained by the CFONB (inherited from the AFB, the Association française des banques). It is the functional ancestor of the ISO 20022 Bank Transaction Code, though far less granular.

Full annotated CFONB120 example

The business day is July 10, 2026, with the same account and the same transactions as the camt.053 example in the previous topic, so you can read one statement in both formats. It shows an Adyen payout of €12,500.00 (code 15, with a 05 record carrying the EndToEndId) and a direct debit of €1,840.50 (code 05). Lines starting with # are annotations. The others are actual 120-character records, with trailing padding spaces trimmed here for readability.

# Note: each record is exactly 120 characters long in the actual
# file; padding spaces up to position 120 are trimmed here.
# --- Record 01: opening balance on July 9, 2026 ---------------------------
# pos 1-2 = 01; pos 3-7 bank 30004; pos 12-16 branch 00812; pos 17-19 EUR
# pos 22-32 account; pos 35-40 date 090726; pos 91-104 amount +152,340.25
# (0000001523402 + E: E = last digit 5, credit sign)
0130004    00812EUR2 00012345678  090726                                                  0000001523402E
# --- Record 04: credit transfer received (Adyen payout) --------------------
# pos 33-34 = 15 (transfer received); booking/value dates 100726;
# description pos 49-79; entry no. 0004512; amount +12,500.00 (...125000 + {)
# reference pos 105-120 = REF7593012
0430004    00812EUR2 0001234567815100726  100726VIR SEPA ADYEN NV BATCH 42       0004512  0000000125000{REF7593012
# --- Record 05: supplement to the previous transaction ---------------------
# pos 46-48 = RCN qualifier (customer reference); field 49-118 = full SEPA
# EndToEndId, not truncated: the matching key for the settlement report
0530004    00812EUR2 0001234567815100726     RCNADYEN-SETTLEMENT-2026-BATCH42
# --- Record 04: SEPA direct debit charged ----------------------------------
# pos 33-34 = 05 (direct debit); amount -1,840.50 (0000000018405 + });
# reference pos 105-120 = RUM-FONCDOCKS-00 (mandate ref. cut to 16 chars!)
0430004    00812EUR2 0001234567805100726  100726PRLV SEPA FONCIERE DES DOCKS     0004513  0000000018405}RUM-FONCDOCKS-00
# --- Record 07: closing balance on July 10, 2026 --------------------------
# 152,340.25 + 12,500.00 - 1,840.50 = 162,999.75 (0000001629997 + E)
0730004    00812EUR2 00012345678  100726                                                  0000001629997E

• The integrity check is the same as for MT940: opening balance + the sum of signed transactions = closing balance, and one day’s 07 = the next day’s 01.
• The 16-character reference field (positions 105–120) suffers from the same truncation as the MT940 :61: field, which is why the 05 RCN record was added for SEPA.
• Compare it with the equivalent camt.053: the same data, but in self-describing XML instead of positions you have to know by heart.

CFONB240 (LCR/BOR) and CFONB160 (the legacy format)

CFONB240 structures the submission and reporting of trade bills: the lettre de change relevé (LCR, a paperless bill of exchange) and the billet à ordre relevé (BOR, a paperless promissory note). It covers bills submitted for collection or discounting, statements of bills payable, and outcome notices (paid, or unpaid with a reason). Trade bills are a purely domestic instrument, and no SEPA format replaces them. In 2026, CFONB240 is still the operational standard for companies that use LCRs, in construction, wholesale trade, and manufacturing.

CFONB160 carried the initiation of domestic credit transfers and direct debits (RIB bank details, France’s domestic account identifiers, in fixed positions over 160 characters). The SEPA migration killed it. Since the regulatory deadlines of 2014–2016, files have been submitted as pain.001 (credit transfers) and pain.008 (direct debits, with UMR mandate management). It survives only in old systems on borrowed time, never in a workflow built after the migration.

Who still uses what in 2026

French banks usually bill each reporting subscription separately, so CFONB120 and camt.053 appear as two line items. A migration therefore means budgeting for dual reporting during a quarter of parallel testing, then canceling the old feed once the new format is validated.