Crédit du Nord

Crédit du Nord was a French retail banking network. It consisted of the following banks:

Crédit du Nord is fully owned by Société Générale. Crédit du Nord specialises on professionals and small business. It serves about 1.5 million customers in more than 700 stores (2006).

• Banque Courtois, Toulouse, Aquitaine (oldest existing bank in France, founded in 1760)
• Banque Kolb, Alsace, Lorraine
• Banque Laydernier, Savoy
• Banque Nuger, Massif Central
• Banque Rhône-Alpes, Lyon
• Banque Tarneaud, Limoges
• Société Marseillaise de Crédit, Marseille
• Crédit du Nord itself in the rest of France
• Gilbert Dupont, a stock brokerage firm

History

Crédit du Nord started in Lille in 1848. After buying a number of small banks, it was, in turn, acquired by Paribas between 1972 (35% owned) and 1988 (100% owned) but remained run as a separate network. In the following years several regional French banks were brought in the group while retaining their names. In 1984, it was the fifth-ranking French banking group.[1] It rebranded itself, after working with Creative Business (a public relations company), with a new logo, graphics of its name, the architecture of its branches, and public relations.[1] It changed its logo from an orange cube to a blue star.[1]

In 1997, the whole Crédit du Nord network with the associated banks was acquired by Société Générale from Paribas. Since 2000, Crédit du Nord is 80% owned by Société Générale and 20% by Dexia.

A full merger with Société Générale was achieved 2023.

The customer-facing SG Crédit du Nord (SG meaning Société Générale) brand[2] is applied to both the former Crédit du Nord, and the Société Générale branches in the North of France.[3]

As with SG Crédit du Nord, the remaining Crédit du Nord banks' identities are also applied as regional brand names:

• SG Tarneaud in Centre-Val de Loire and in parts of Nouvelle-Aquitaine (the remaining of the branches in Nouvelle-Aquitaine are named SG Sud-Ouest)
• SG Courtois in Occitanie
• SG SMC (for Société Marseillaise de Crédit) in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
• SG Laydernier in parts of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (the remaining of the branches in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes are named SG Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes)

Controversy

In 2010, the French government's Autorité de la concurrence (the department in charge of regulating competition) fined eleven banks, including Crédit du Nord, the sum of €384,900,000 for colluding to charge unjustified fees on check processing, especially for extra fees charged during the transition from paper check transfer to "Exchanges Check-Image" electronic transfer.[4][5]

External links

• Credit du Nord bank profile