The ''Banque nationale pour le commerce et l'industrie'' (BNCI, "National Bank for Trade and Industry") was a major French bank, active from 1932 to 1966 when it merged with Comptoir national d'escompte de Paris to form

Banque Nationale de Paris BNP Paribas is a French international banking group, founded in 2000 from the merger between Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP, "National Bank of Paris") and Paribas, formerly known as the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas. The full name of the grou ...

(BNP). It was itself the successor of the ''Comptoir d'Escompte de Mulhouse'', a bank founded in 1848 under the Second French Republic, and its subsidiary formed in 1913, the ''Banque Nationale de Crédit''.

Comptoir d'Escompte de Mulhouse

The Comptoir national d'escompte de Mulhouse was created on as one of 65 comptoirs d'escompte or local discount banks under the initiative of the new Republican government, following the financial crisis associated with the

February Revolution The February Revolution ( rus, Февра́льская револю́ция, r=Fevral'skaya revolyutsiya, p=fʲɪvˈralʲskəjə rʲɪvɐˈlʲutsɨjə), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and somet ...

of that year. Its first director was local industrialist , appointed by government decree on . In May 1852, the government withdrew its financial support, and the Comptoir national d'escompte de Mulhouse was one of less than a dozen that survived, together with those in Alès,

Angoulême Angoulême (; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''Engoulaeme''; oc, Engoleime) is a communes of France, commune, the Prefectures of France, prefecture of the Charente Departments of France, department, in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of southwestern Franc ...

Caen Caen (, ; nrf, Kaem) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inhabitants (), while its functional urban area has 470,000, The French government appointed François Albert-Buisson, former President of the Tribunal de commerce de la Seine, as its new president. Buisson was assisted by , a former director of studies of the , as the BNCI's first CEO (french: directeur général).

Further expansion and developments until 1966 merger

In 1934, BNCI opened a regional administration centre in Bordeaux, and later created seven other regional centers to handle routine branch teller tasks. Starting in 1937 it started expanding by buying a number of struggling local and regional banks. These included the in the north and west of France, and in the southeast, and in the north, as well as the smaller in Brive-la-Gaillarde, in Bergerac, Dordogne, Bergerac, and in Saint-Gaudens, Haute-Garonne, Saint-Gaudens. Under Occupation of France, German occupation, BNCI's domestic business stagnated as was the case with other major French banks, but its international development was more dynamic. Its CEO Alfred Pose relocated to French Algeria following the Battle of France, and in September 1940 acquired majority ownership of a small regional bank, the (BUNA), headquartered in Algiers at 17, boulevard Baudin. This was soon renamed (BNCIA) and became a basis for expansion over the following two decades in French North Africa, French West Africa, French Equatorial Africa, and the French West Indies. Later in 1940, Pose opened branches in Casablanca and in Saint-Louis, Senegal. In 1941 the bank further expanded in Tunisia and Guinea, as well as Madagascar and Réunion through the acquisition of the . It also developed a network in Syria and Lebanon during the war. In 1945, under the impetus of Finance Minister René Pleven, the French government nationalized the Bank of France and the four major depository banks, including BNCI. In 1947, the London branch of BNCI was transformed into a subsidiary and renamed the British & French Bank (BFB), with shares held by BNCI, S.G. Warburg and Robert Benson & Co. In 1974, the BFB would return to full ownership by its parent, by then the

, and was eventually renamed BNP plc in 1981. The bank's overseas activities evolved in the international context of decolonization. In 1954, the BNCI transformed the into . In 1961, it formed by merging its Tunisian activity with a separate subsidiary it had created in 1955, Union financière et technique de Tunisie (UFITEC). The BFB's operations in Nigeria, which had started in 1949 with the opening of a branch in Lagos, were restructured into the United Bank for Africa (UBA) in 1961 following the country’s independence; the BFB initially held a 58% majority stake in UBA, but that decreased to 32.5% in 1973 and 25.5% in 1976 as the Nigerian government gradually took control. In the former French colonies of sub-Saharan Africa, the BNCI created national subsidiaries in 1962 under the brand name (BICI, "International Bank for Trade and Industry"), e.g. in Côte d'Ivoire ( - BICICI), Gabon ( - BICIG), Senegal ( - BICIS), Cameroon, and the Republic of the Congo. In 1964, it restructured its Moroccan business as a subsidiary, the Banque marocaine pour le commerce et l'industrie (BMCI, "Moroccan Bank for Trade and Industry"), and allowed Moroccan stakeholders to enter its equity capital in compliance with the country's policy of . In Algeria, its successor the BNP eventually had to terminate its activity in late 1967 and sold its branch properties to the Bank of Algeria in January 1968. In the 1950s, BNCI strengthened its position in the domestic retail banking market in France, while at the same time creating specialist services that provided financial advice to French businesspeople and entrepreneurs to help them explore new resources or markets in the developing world. For that purpose it created a specialized subsidiary in 1958, the (INTERCOMI). By 1965, BNCI was the only French bank with such an international network. On 4 May 1966, Minister of the Economy, Finances and Industry (France), Minister of Finance Michel Debré announced the merger of BNCI with Comptoir national d'escompte de Paris (CNEP) under the new name of ''Banque Nationale de Paris'' (BNP). BNCI provided BNP with a large international network and significantly contributed to its asset base.

Head office building in Paris

The BNC's initial head office in 1913 was at 20, rue Le Peletier. In 1917, it was relocated to 16, Boulevard des Italiens, which has remained the registered address of its successor entities all the way to BNP Paribas. The BNC subsequently acquired adjoining properties, including the famed . In the 1920s, in the urban renewal context of completion of the Boulevard Haussmann, it had them all demolished to erect an iconic new headquarters building, which ironically was completed in 1931 just as the bank was going through the financial turmoil that would soon lead to its replacement by the BNCI. The ten-story building occupies a full quadrilateral city block between Boulevard des Italiens, Rue Laffitte, Boulevard Haussmann, and . That space was formerly occupied by a number of different buildings including the celebrated Louis Bignon#Café Riche, Café Riche, that were demolished for the new construction. The BNC building was initially designed in 1927 by architects Georges Guiard and Olivier Carré, but the facades were subsequently modified at the bank's request into a more pioneering art deco style by architects and Charles Letrosne, while the building's structure was already near complete. Marrast and Letrosne's elevations include monumental engaged columns that are loosely reminiscent of Ancient Egyptian architecture. The metalwork on the ground floor was created by . The atrium inside is covered by a concrete vault made translucent by the insertion of glass bricks. The building immediately to the east at 2, boulevard des Italiens (and 1, boulevard Haussmann), on a wedge-shaped block marking the intersection of Boulevard des Italiens and Boulevard Haussmann, was built in 1925-1927 on a design by architects and Marcel Julien, with a striking Rotunda (architecture), rotunda at the tip. On the corner with rue Le Peletier, it replaced an earlier building that had successively been the Parisian branch office of the Russo-Chinese Bank, of its successor the Russo-Asiatic Bank from 1910, and of the short-lived Banca Italiana di Sconto from World War I to its collapse in 1921. It was annexed by the expanding BNCI in 1957 and was lightly remodeled by Marrast on that occasion to form part of the enlarged headquarters complex, including metalwork on the ground floor to host a foreign exchange office. A bridge was added in 1968 to connect the two buildings at the first-floor level. File:LePeletier20.jpg, Building at 20, rue Le Peletier in Paris, BNC head office from 1913 to 1917 File:Italiens12.jpg, Head office built by BNC and used by BNCI at 16, boulevard des Italiens File:Maison Doree siege BNP bd Italiens P1050972.JPG, BNCI Headquarters building (right), with the Maison dorée (Paris), Maison dorée (now offices of BNP Paribas CIB) in front File:BNP Paribas, 2 boulevard des Italiens, Paris 20 August 2016.jpg, Building at 2, boulevard des Italiens, annexed to BNCI headquarters in 1957

References

External sources

An innovative Bank : the Banque nationale pour le commerce et l'industrie (BNCI) in Source d'Histoire
* {{Authority control Defunct banks of France BNP Paribas