Groupe Caisse d'Épargne

Groupe Caisse d'épargne

Type	Semi co-operative
Industry	Financial services
Founded	1818 (1818)
Headquarters	Paris, France
Key people	François Pérol
Products	Banking and insurance
Number of employees	52,000
Website	caisse-epargne.fr

Groupe Caisse d'épargne is a French semi-cooperative banking group, founded in 1818, with around 4700 branches in the country. The group is active in retail and private banking, as well as holding a significant stake in the publicly traded investment bank Natixis.

Operations

The group's most notable brand is the Caisse d'épargne network of mutual savings banks. Along with La Banque Postale and Crédit Mutuel, the bank shared the rights to offer the popular Livret A savings accounts, backed by the French government until January 1, 2009.

In addition, the group is also the owner of the mortgage bank Crédit Foncier, the corporate and private bank Banque Palatine and Financière Océor, a commercial, private asset management and specialist finance bank serving France's overseas departments.

In 2006 Groupe Caisse d'épargne merged its investment bank IXIS Corporate and Investment Bank with Groupe Banque Populaire's Natexis, creating Natixis, a publicly traded investment bank in which Caisse d'épargne and Groupe Banque Populaire currently hold an equal stake of 35.25%.^[1] Groupe Caisse d'épargne has also since merged its private wealth management bank La Compagnie 1818 into the Natixis group.

The group is listed in the 2007 ICA Global 300 list of mutuals and co-operatives, ranked 11th by 2005 turnover, making it the 2nd largest co-operative banking group in the world, after Crédit Agricole.^[2] It was the fourth French bank and the twenty-fifth bank in the world by total assets in 2008.^[3]

Trading loss

The company suffered a €751 million derivatives trading loss in October 2008,^[4] which it blamed partly on the high market volatility at the time.^[5] The group of employees responsible for making the unauthorised trades were dismissed.^[6]

Proposed merger

In October 2008 Groupe Caisse d'épargne announced plans to merge with fellow mutual Groupe Banque Populaire, in response to recent consolidation in the banking industry.^[1] Press agency AFP linked the announcement directly to the ongoing global liquidity crisis.^[1] The companies intend however to retain their separate retail banking brands and branch networks. If the merger is completed, the enlarged company,^[1] would hold €480 billion in deposits and have over six million customers.^[5]

Groupe Caisse d'épargne merges with the BFBP (Banque fédérale des banques populaires) in July 2009, and became BPCE, the France's second largest bank.^[7]

Sponsorship

The group was the title sponsor of a Spanish professional cycling team from 2006 to 2010, after which Movistar took over sponsorship.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Groupe Caisse d'Epargne.

• Groupe Caisse d'épargne official site (French)
• Natixis official site (French)

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