BNP Paribas in wartime: minutes of the BNCI Board meeting of 19 September 1939

The minutes

The purpose of the minutes of a Board of Directors’ meeting is to transcribe as accurately as possible what is said at the meeting. The minutes serve an official purpose, and their content is often voted on. They are kept in a book devoted to the minutes of the Board of Directors covering the years 1936 to 1940. They serve an internal function but can be the subject of external communication and often constitute a source for historians.

The Board’s focus on 19 September 1939 was the war, and how it affected the bank’s operations, cash flow, employees and the evacuation of certain central departments. BNCI’s commercial commitments and financial transactions were also discussed.

A bank in a state of war

The impact of the war on the bank’s finances

The state of war affected the bank’s finances, savers and investors. Companies and individuals announced that they would be withdrawing funds to prepare for the economic and financial consequences of the conflict. The war also required BNCI to borrow from Banque de France and implement rediscounting to offset the lack of liquidity. The minutes stress the propensity of banks and branches to “hold on to cash” to maintain liquidity in order to prepare for the consequences of the war. These economic shifts gave rise to communication problems and “capital slowdowns”.

The bank and conscription

Conscription was decreed on 2 September 1939. This impacted BNCI because many of its employees were concerned, and its executives in particular, the minutes reporting that some of the provincial head offices were missing up to three-quarters of their executive staff. Of the 36 branches in Paris, 20 lost their management, and of 103 executive units, only 56 were in service on 19 September.

The bank had to make up for these shortcomings by proposing transfers or by calling on pensioners. The banking network was impacted, but BNCI did all it could to offset the drastic reduction in headcount. Staff shortages also persisted lower down in the hierarchy, with a substantial decline in the number of secretaries, requiring the bank to call on employees from other “houses” (the bank’s subsidiaries).

In what it saw as a major social issue, BNCI also set great stock in maintaining the incomes of employees impacted by conscription. The bank said it was “taking on heavy burdens” for its conscripted staff. The fathers of families with at least three children received 60% of their salary, while single employees were paid up to 10% of their salary.

The key issue of evacuations

The Board also discussed evacuations. The key question in this respect was the central administration and its possible evacuation from Paris. However, the bank needed to maintain constant links with the French Treasury, the Stock Exchange and Banque de France. The minutes also refer to evacuations from northern and eastern France to western France, including to the town of Dinan in Brittany. The bank ultimately chose the city of Pau in the southwest to conserve securities and employees of the head offices, and as a priority those of northern and eastern France.

The minutes of this momentous Board meeting shed interesting light on the moves made by the bank’s decision-making body against a backdrop of war that disrupted the bank’s business activities across the board.