Groupe BPCE (for Banque Populaire Caisse d'Epargne) is a major French banking group formed by the 2009 merger of two major retail banking groups, Groupe Caisse d'Épargne and

Groupe Banque Populaire Groupe Banque Populaire ("People's Bank") was a French group of cooperative banks. The central entity was controlled by 15 independent regional banks and also operated under the CASDEN and the Crédit Coopératif subsidiaries. In 2006, Groupe Ba ...

. As of 2021, it was France's fourth largest bank, the seventh largest in Europe, and the nineteenth in the world by total assets. It has more than 8,200 branches nationwide under their respective brand names serving nearly 150 million customers. It is Europe's largest bank by revenue, ahead of

BNP Paribas 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 ...

and

HSBC HSBC Holdings plc is a British multinational universal bank and financial services holding company. It is the largest bank in Europe by total assets ahead of BNP Paribas, with US$2.953 trillion as of December 2021. In 2021, HSBC had $10.8 tr ...

. It is considered a global systemically important bank (G-SIB) by the

Financial Stability Board The Financial Stability Board (FSB) is an international body that monitors and makes recommendations about the global financial system. It was established after the G20 London summit in April 2009 as a successor to the Financial Stability For ...

Background

Caisses d'Épargne, Eulia and Ixis

Groupe Caisse d'Épargne ("Savings Bank Group") was born in 1818 with the foundation of the Paris savings bank, . It long grew from the bottom up as an expanding set of local savings banks, until a 1983 legislation created a central financial entity or "national center", the (CENCEP). In 1992, CENCEP was replaced by the (CNCE), which unlike CENCEP was a licensed bank. In 1999, new legislation transformed the savings banks into cooperatives. These developments paved the way for the gradual transformation of the decentralized network of savings banks into an increasingly integrated universal banking group in the next decade. In July 1999, CNCE acquired majority ownership of Crédit Foncier de France. Also in 1999, France's

Caisse des dépôts et consignations The Caisse des dépôts et consignations (CDC; ) is a French public sector financial institution created in 1816, and part of the government institutions under the control of the Parliament. Often described as the "investment arm" of the Fren ...

(CDC) formed a commercial and investment banking subsidiary, CDC IXIS. In 2001, CNCE and CDC formed a joint venture, Eulia, to which CDC contributed CDC IXIS. In June 2004, CNCE took full control of Eulia and therefore also of CDC IXIS, which it renamed Ixis. Between 2003 and 2008 CNCE separately acquired the French subsidiary of

Sanpaolo IMI Sanpaolo IMI S.p.A. was an Italian banking and insurance conglomerate, based in Turin. It employed about 44,000 people and had about 7 million customers. On 24 August 2006 a merger with Banca Intesa was announced, which on 1 December 2006 was app ...

, including the former and French operations of the Banque Française Commerciale, and made it its private banking subsidiary under the new brand Banque Palatine adopted in June 2005.

Banques Populaires and Natexis

Groupe Banque Populaire ("People's Bank Group") was born in 1878 with the foundation of the first local Popular Bank (french: banque populaire) in the western French city of

Angers Angers (, , ) is a city in western France, about southwest of Paris. It is the prefecture of the Maine-et-Loire department and was the capital of the province of Anjou until the French Revolution. The inhabitants of both the city and the pr ...

. In 1917, new legislation established the local Popular Banks' cooperative status and in 1921, another legislative act established a central financial entity, the (CCBP). In 1919, the French state sponsored the creation of

Crédit National The Crédit national was a former French banking institution created under the impetus of Charles François Laurent, an expert in international financing, by a special law on , located on the border between the private domain and the sphere of i ...

, a specialized bank. In 1946, the French state created

Compagnie Française d'Assurance pour le Commerce Extérieur Compagnie Française d'Assurance pour le Commerce Extérieur (Coface) is a credit insurer that operates worldwide' in addition to offering debt collection services, factoring and business information, and bonds. Created in 1946, Coface was l ...

(Coface), a trade credit insurer, and Banque Française du Commerce Extérieur (BFCE), a specialized bank providing export financing services. In 1996, Crédit National purchased BFCE, and the merged entity renamed itself as Natexis, in which ''natex'' is a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsNatexis Banques Populaires. In 1999, the CCBP was replaced by a new banking entity, the (BFBP). Natexis Banques Populaires purchased Coface in 2002. That same year, cooperative bank the joined the Banque Populaire network.

Natixis

In 2006 the two groups, Caisse d'Épargne and Banque Populaire, agreed to merge their commercial and investment banking subsidiaries, respectively Ixis and Natexis Banques Populaires. The new entity was given the name Natixis, a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsinitial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investme ...

on , after which CNCE and BFBP each owned 35 percent of its equity capital, the rest being free float. Natixis, however, soon suffered from poor capital allocation and risk management choices in the context of the

Financial crisis of 2007–2008 Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of ...

, including on investments into

Bernie Madoff Bernard Lawrence Madoff ( ; April 29, 1938April 14, 2021) was an American fraudster and financier who was the admitted mastermind of the largest Ponzi scheme in history, worth about $64.8 billion. He was at one time chairman of the NASDAQ ...

's funds. Key executives had to resign or were sacked: Nicolas Mérindol and , respectively CEO and chairman of CNCE, on ; and Bruno Mettling, respectively chairman of Natixis and CEO of BFBP, on ; and , CEO of Natexis, on . File:P1200666 Paris Ier hotel Bullion rwk.jpg, , seat of the Caisse d'Épargne de Paris from 1844 File:P1040384 Paris Ier rue des Capucines immeuble n°19 rwk.JPG, Former head office of Crédit Foncier at 19, rue des Capucines File:115 Montmartre.jpg, Entrance of the building at 115, rue Montmartre in Paris, former head office of Caisse Centrale des Banques Populaires File:47 St Dominique.jpg, Former head office of Crédit National at 45–47, rue Saint-Dominique in Paris File:Haussmann21.jpg, Former head office of Banque Française du Commerce Extérieur at 21, boulevard Haussmann in Paris File:Hôtel de Richepanse 001.JPG, Hotel de Richepanse at 3–5, rue Masseran, former head office of CENCEP, CNCE and Eulia File:Thalassa, Quai André-Citroën, Paris.jpg, ''Le Ponant'' building in Paris, former head office of Banque Fédérale des Banques Populaires File:NatixisParis.JPG, Head office of Natixis in 2007, near the Gare de Lyon File:Palatine rue anjou.jpg, Former seat of Schneider et Cie at 42, rue d'Anjou in Paris, since December 2007 head office of Banque Palatine

Creation of BPCE and subsequent developments

2013 Planete PME CGPME Francois Perol president Directoire BPCE

In 2008 and early 2009, the French state provided around 7 billion euros of financial support to the group formed by Caisse d'Épargne, Banque Populaire and Natixis. François Pérol, a senior aide to President

Nicolas Sarkozy Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa (; ; born 28 January 1955) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2007 to 2012. Born in Paris, he is of Hungarian, Greek Jewish, and French origin. Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Se ...

, led the decision-making on the group's restructuring. The entity resulting from the merger of CNCE and BFBP, named BPCE, was formed on . That same day, Pérol became its CEO while , previously the chairman of Groupe Banque Populaire, became non-executive chairman of BPCE. In 2014, BPCE had Coface listed through an initial public offering, and subsequently reduced its equity stake. As of March 2021, BPCE retained residual ownership of 12.7 percent of Coface's capital. In July 2016, BPCE announced the purchase of

Fidor Bank Fidor Bank is a German online bank, founded in 2009. In 2015, it started a market foray into the UK. In July 2016, it was announced that Fidor Bank was being acquired by France's Groupe BPCE for €100m. As of September 2016, Fidor Bank continue ...

, a Fintech challenger bank, operating in the UK and Germany, but in November 2018 considered selling it again. In 2018–2019, BPCE fully integrated the former Crédit Foncier de France's activities into its other operations and terminated the use of the Crédit Foncier brand. In June–July 2021, it acquired all shares of Natixis that it did not previously own, and completed the entity's delisting on .

Leadership

Groupe BPCE has had two chief executives (french: président du directoire) so far: * François Pérol (July 2009 - May 2018) * (June 2018 – present)

Structure and operations

Despite the 2009 merger, the two networks of local banks, Caisse d'Épargne and Banque Populaire, continue to operate under separate and to an extent competing brands. BPCE is fully owned by the local savings banks and popular banks, which in turn are legally owned by their customers as cooperative members. BPCE provides various deposit and loan products to small and medium enterprises, craftspeople, franchisees, and franchisers; savings collection and management, credit, payment, and wealth management services; and real estate financing and corporate banking services. The company also offers bancassurance products, including life assurance and pensions that comprise automobile and home insurance, legal protection, the guarantee of life accidents, the supplementary health care insurance, welfare professionals and the collective retirement pensions and health, as well as credit insurance and guarantees to individuals, professionals, real estate professionals, and businesses.

Controversies

In 2010 the French government's competition authority, the

Autorité de la concurrence The (; ) is France's national competition regulator. Its predecessor, the Competition Council, was established in the 1950s. The Competition Authority is an , responsible for preventing anti-competitive practices and monitoring the functionin ...

, fined eleven banks, including Groupe BPCE, 385 million euros in the context of the

French check processing fee controversy of 2010 In 2010, the French government's (the department in charge of regulating competition) fined eleven banks €384.9 million for colluding to charge unjustified fees for check processing, especially for extra fees charged during the transition fr ...

. In 2022, Groupe BPCE's subsidiar
Natixis
which owns a property at the famous intersection of Haight and Ashbury Streets in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

, is forcing legendary music venu
Club DeLuxe
the nesting ground for

Swing revival The swing revival, also called retro swing and neo-swing, was a renewed interest in swing music, beginning around 1989 and reaching a peak from the early/mid to late 1990s. The music was generally rooted in the big bands of the swing era of the ...

, to close its doors.

References

3rd UPDATE: French Watchdog Fines 11 Banks For Fee Cartel
Elena Bertson, Dow Jones News Wires / Wall Street Journal online, retr 2010 9 20 Collusion in the banking sector
Press Release of Autorité de la concurrence, République Française, 20 September 2010, retrv 2010 9 20 {{Authority control Systemically important financial institutions Banks under direct supervision of the European Central Bank BPCE