BNP Paribas

The firm is a universal bank split into three strategic business units: Retail Banking, Corporate and Investment Banking and Investment Solutions (which includes Asset Management, custodial banking, and real estate services). BNP Paribas's four domestic markets are France, Italy, Belgium, and Luxembourg. It also has significant retail operations in the United States, Poland, Turkey, Ukraine, and North Africa, as well as large-scale investment banking operations in New York, London, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
BNP Paribas escaped the 2007/09 credit crisis relatively unscathed reporting a €3 billion net profit for the year of 2008, and €5.8 billion for 2009, both years boosted by profits from trading in its 
The Banque National de Paris S.A. (BNP) resulted from a merger of two French banks BNCI and CNEP in 1966.
The Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas S.A. (Bank of Paris and the Netherlands), or Paribas was formed from two investment banks based respectively in Paris and Amsterdam, in 1872. Les Pays-Bas The Low-Countries is French for the Netherlands.

In May 2000, BNP and Paribas merged to form BNP Paribas, which is thus descended from four founding banking institutions.

Background and heritage as four banks: 1820–2000
Main articles: Comptoir national d'escompte de Paris and Banque nationale pour le commerce et l'industrie
On 7 March 1848, the French Provisional Government founded the Comptoir national d'escompte de Paris CNEP in response to the financial shock caused by the revolution of February 1848. The upheaval destroyed the old credit system, which was already struggling to provide sufficient capital to meet the demands of the railway boom and the resulting growth of industry. The CEP grew steadily in France and overseas, although in 1889 there was a crisis in which it was temporarily placed in receivership.

Separately, on 18 April 1932, the French government replaced Banque nationale de crédit BNC, which failed as a result of the 1930s recession, with the new bank Banque nationale pour le commerce et l'industrie BNCI. The former banks headquarter and staff were used to create BNCI with fresh capital of 100 million francs. The bank initially grew rapidly through absorbing a number of regional banks that got into financial trouble. After the Second World War, it continued to grow steadily. It grew its retail business in France and its commercial business overseas in the French colonial empire.

After the end of the Second World War, the French state decided to "put banks and credit to work for national reconstruction". René Pleven, then Minister of Finance, launched a massive reorganization of the banking industry. A law passed on 2 December 1945 and which went into effect on 1 January 1946 nationalized the four leading French retail banks: Banque nationale pour le commerce et l'industrie BNCI, Comptoir national d'escompte de Paris CNEP, Crédit Lyonnais, and Société Générale.

In 1966, the French government decided to merge Comptoir national d'escompte de Paris with Banque nationale pour le commerce et l'industrie to create one new bank called Banque Nationale de Paris 
The bank was re-privatised in 1993 under the leadership of Michel Pébereau as part of a second Chirac government's privatization policy....