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The following list of banks in France is to be understood within the framework of the European single market and European banking union, which means that France's banking system is more open to cross-border banking operations than peers outside of the EU.
European banking supervision distinguishes between significant institutions (SIs) and less significant institutions (LSIs), with SI/LSI designations updated regularly by the European Central Bank (ECB). Significant institutions are directly supervised by the ECB using joint supervisory teams that involve the national competent authorities (NCAs) of individual participating countries. Less significant institutions are supervised by the relevant NCA on a day-to-day basis, under the supervisory oversight of the ECB. [1] In France's case, the NCA is the French Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority, hosted within the Bank of France and known by the acronym ACPR. [2]
As of 1 September 2025, the ECB had the following 12 banking groups based in France in its list of significant institutions. [3]
Of these, BNP Paribas, BPCE, Crédit Agricole, and Société Générale have been consistently designated as Global systemically important banks (G-SIBs) by the Financial Stability Board, including in the update of November 2025. [4] A study published in 2024 assessed that the bank with most aggregate assets in France (as opposed to total consolidated assets, as of end-2023) was Crédit Agricole at nearly €2 trillion, followed by BNP Paribas (€1.5 trillion), BPCE (€1.4 trillion), Société Générale and Crédit Mutuel (€1 trillion each), and La Banque Postale (€738 billion). [5] France is also home to subsidiaries of other euro-area significant institutions namely Crelan, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, and Santander. [3]
As of 1 September 2025, the ECB's list of supervised institutions included 93 French LSIs. [3]
Of these, five were designated by the ECB as "high-impact" on the basis of several criteria including size:
Of these, LCH SA met the criteria for SI designation, but has been classified by the ECB as a LSI by special derogation together with a handful of other financial market infrastructures. [3]
Based on the same ECB list, 29 French LSIs (other than LCH SA) were affiliates of financial groups based outside the euro area, among which 3 branches and 26 subsidiaries:
Again based on the same ECB lists, 17 French LSIs were specialized municipal pawnbrokers (French : Crédit Municipal, owned by the respective city governments):
The 42 other French LSI were:
The Bank of France, Agence Française de Développement, and Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, all based in Paris, are public credit institutions that do not hold a banking license under EU law. [6]
Numerous former French banks, defined as having been headquartered in the present-day territory of France, are documented on Wikipedia. They are listed below in chronological order of establishment, divided into three categories.
The Bank of France, created in 1800, secured its monopoly of bank issuance on the whole territory of Metropolitan France in 1848, which was only briefly contested in the aftermath of the annexation of Savoy in the early 1860s.
Several colonial and overseas banks had most of their operations outside of Metropolitan France but were nevertheless based there, generally in Paris, for at least part of their existence. For example, the Banque de l'Algérie was originally headquartered in Algiers, but relocated its head office to Paris in 1900. The Ottoman Bank had dual headquarters in London and Paris.