Foundation Georges Dufayel developed a system of buying vouchers through installment payments, which could then be spent in stores that accepted the vouchers. Dufayel owned the retail chain
Grands Magasins Dufayel that accepted his vouchers, and they were also accepted by independent stores. These included La Samaritaine, which doubled its sales in one year after introducing credit.
La Semeuse was created in 1913 by some of Dufayel's former employees, with a similar credit model. The motto was "Capital must work; workers must have [capital]". Door-to-door salespeople sold coupons to working class consumers. After making a small down-payment, the buyer could buy goods with the coupon, paying the rest later. They could also wait until they had paid for the coupon before using it, treating it as a form of savings account. The founders were praised by ''
l'Humanité'' as "syndicalists and revolutionaries".
La Samaritaine ownership La Semeuse won the
La Samaritaine account. Dufayel tried to block the move. When that failed he entered into direct competition with
La Samaritaine in selling clothing. Soon after
La Samaritaine bought
La Semeuse. The form of consumer credit provided by
La Semeuse,
Provident and others spread in France in the interwar period, in competition with credit arrangements offered by unions of retailers and with consumer finance companies backed by car and appliance manufacturers. The company did well, and by 1929 three hundred retailers were accepting its coupons. Consumers in France in 1949 could buy appliances on credit from
La Semeuse, and also from
Gaz de France and the CAF. By 1953 La Semeuse had outstanding consumer sales loans of 5 billion old francs. Eventually the
La Semeuse coupons were replaced by the Sofinco credit card. Sofinco was founded in 1951 by the ''Fédération nationale de l'ameublement'' (National Furniture Federation). In 2000 it became a wholly owned subsidiary of
Crédit Agricole. ==Building==