Archive collection of BNP Paribas Group

The BNP Paribas archives are among the largest corporate archives in France. They comprise the historical records of the Group’s predecessor banks (CNEP, CNEM, BNC, BNCI, BNP, Paribas, Compagnie bancaire, and the Banque impériale ottomane). Today, most of these archives are preserved at the Taden site in Dinan, while those of BNC, part of CNEM, and the Banque impériale ottomane are held in Roubaix at the Archives nationales du monde du travail (ANMT). As for the archives of Fortis and BNL’s predecessor banks, they are respectively preserved in Brussels, Belgium, and Rome, Italy.

Identification

Date range: 1865-Today
Physical description: Paper archives, poster collections, photographs, printed materials, periodicals; born-digital archives – photographs, videos, and audio; historical object collection.
Volume: 26,313 in UA
Physical location: with the exception of a few articles kept at the Archives nationales du monde du travail (ANMT) and the BNP Paribas History Association, the whole collection is kept in Dinan (Côtes d’Armor).

History

The BNP Paribas Group was created on 23 May 2000 from the merger of the Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP) and Paribas. In France, for its BNP part, it is the heir of Comptoir national d’Escompte de Paris (CNEP) and Comptoir national d’Escompte de Mulhouse (CNEM), created in 1848, Banque Nationale de Crédit (BNC ), Banque Nationale pour le Commerce et l’Industrie (BNCI), and for its Paribas part, of Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas (BPPB), which became Paribas.

But its roots date back to 1822 with Société Générale de Banque in Belgium, the forerunner of Fortis bank, acquired by the Group in 2009. It is therefore a story that has been written gradually, not without crises, polished through acquisitions and expansion. Our archive collection bears direct witness to this.