Groupe Caisse d'Épargne

Groupe Caisse d'épargne (lit. 'Savings Bank Group') was a group of French savings banks that were converted into cooperative banks by legislation enacted in 1999. Its roots went back to the founding in 1818 of the Caisse d'Épargne et de Prévoyance de Paris, initiated by Benjamin Delessert and the Duke of La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt.

The group was active in retail and private banking, with around 4700 branches in the country, as well as holding a significant stake in the publicly traded investment bank Natixis. In 2009, it merged with Groupe Banque Populaire to form Groupe BPCE. A retail banking network under BPCE still uses the Caisse d'Épargne brand name.

History


The first French savings bank (Caisse d'Épargne) was created in Paris in 1818 by a group of financiers, social reformers and philanthropists that included Benjamin Delessert, Jean-Conrad Hottinguer, Joseph Marie de Gérando, Jacques Laffitte, the François Alexandre Frédéric, duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, James Mayer de Rothschild, and Vital Roux. Delessert and La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt were widely seen as the main promoters of the project. In subsequent years, Caisses d'Épargne were created in numerous French towns and cities on a decentralized basis, variously by initiative of Prefects, municipal councils, mounts of piety (traditional lending institutions overseen by the Catholic Church), and/or local religious (Catholic or Protestant) elites. Most of these were created in the northern half of the country, and overwhelmingly served urban rather than rural areas. As in other parts of Europe, the original aim to serve the lifelong financial needs of the lower classes were only partially met, and the client base of the Caisses d'Épargne including many members of the emerging and affluent middle classes, including women and children, albeit with significant geographical heterogeneity.

The Caisses d'Épargne were not fully-fledged banks, since they were not allowed to lend. Their legal status, under successive national savings banks laws starting in 1829, was of idiosyncratic private-sector establishments that were never associations nor commercial companies, governed by boards of co-opted volunteers. The deposits they collected were invested in government bonds. The Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, a financial arm of the French state, was involved in the management of the collected savings from 1837, and fully centralized it from 1895.

By 1881, there were 542 local Caisses d'Épargne in the country. That year, the French government decided create the Caisse Nationale d'Épargne (CNE), France's first postal savings system, which competed with the existing Caisses d'Épargne by leveraging France's post office network. From then on, the pre-existing Caisses d'Épargne were known as "ordinary" or "private" savings banks (Caisses ordinaires or caisses privées) to differentiate them from the state-owned CNE.

In 1983, new legislation created a central financial entity or "national center", the Centre national des caisses d'épargne et de prévoyance (CENCEP). In 1992, CENCEP was replaced by the Caisse Nationale des Caisses d'Épargne (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 (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, including the former Banque Vernes 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.

In 2006 the two groups, Caisse d'Épargne and fellow mutual Groupe 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 of Natexis and Ixis. Natixis went through an initial public offering on 2006/10/25, 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, including on investments into Bernie Madoff's funds. Key executives had to resign or were sacked: Nicolas Mérindol and Charles Milhaud, respectively CEO and chairman of CNCE, on 2008/10/19; Bernard Comolet and Bruno Mettling, respectively chairman of Natixis and CEO of BFBP, on 2009/03/06; and Dominique Ferrero, CEO of Natexis, on 2009/04/29.

In October 2008 Groupe Caisse d'épargne announced plans to merge with Groupe Banque Populaire, in response to recent consolidation in the banking industry. Press agency AFP linked the announcement directly to the ongoing financial crisis of 2007–2008. The companies intend however to retain their separate retail banking brands and branch networks. The merged entity would hold €480 billion in deposits and have over six million customers.

Groupe Caisse d'épargne completed its merger with the BFBP (Banque fédérale des banques populaires) in July 2009, and became BPCE, France's second-largest bank.

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%. 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. It was the fourth French bank and the twenty-fifth bank in the world by total assets in 2008.

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

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