BNP Paribas’s wealth management team has had a stellar year. In Euromoney’s 2023 private banking awards, it was named Europe’s best private bank and the Middle East’s best private bank. It also won a hatfull of country awards, including best domestic private bank in France and best international private bank in Belgium and in Switzerland.

BNP Paribas has a well-earned reputation for steadiness and stability. In the past year, its chief executive, Jean-Laurent Bonnafé, has also reinforced his strategic credentials with the bank’s well-timed exit from its US retail business. Today, the bank stands as the eurozone leader on the global stage and is ready to play a pivotal role in the continent’s financial development.

The bank is prepared to make tough decisions to meet its sustainability targets.

Societe Generale’s recent African exits, and BNP Paribas’s talks with Orange Bank, highlight how closely Europe’s banks tend to follow each other. Differences are often more a question of strength than strategy.

The French bank joins HSBC, DBS and others in setting up a full-service wealth management offering in the stable southeast Asian country, with all transactions booked in nearby Singapore.

BNP Paribas has put environmental, social and governance at the centre of its work over the last few years and BNP Paribas Wealth Management’s approach is no different. The bank, which last year took home the world’s best bank for ESG in Euromoney’s Awards for Excellence, has successfully integrated ESG across its offerings, not least with its innovative ‘myImpact’ app.

With offices in Dubai, Riyadh, Geneva and Luxembourg, BNP Paribas Wealth Management is well positioned to offer succession planning and wealth-transfer services across the Middle East.

BNP Paribas Wealth Management is named the best private bank in the Middle East in this year’s private banking awards.

Adding to its two other European awards this year, BNP Paribas Wealth Management wins the region’s Best private bank for digital award.

Amid strong competition between Europe’s leading private banks, the judges agree that BNP Paribas deserves to be recognised this year as the region’s best private bank, an award supported by two other honours: best for digital and discretionary portfolio management.

Supporting its award as Europe’s Best private bank, BNP Paribas is the judges’ Best bank in the region for discretionary portfolio management, too.

Banks like Santander, BNP Paribas and SocGen see auto finance and the future of mobility as critical pieces of their overall group strategies. But as mobility becomes an increasingly fractured business, what does the auto finance bank of the future look like?

Patents are a high-profile demonstration of a bank’s commitment to innovation, but they are not the only option for those looking to encourage new ways of thinking.

The European Central Bank has made it clear that it would look favourably on big bank mergers to create stronger pan-eurozone lenders. But M&A between large lenders in different eurozone states is still stalling through financial and political fragmentation – despite hopes for a closer union after Brexit and the war in Ukraine.

BNP Paribas has made an environmental, social and governance virtue out of its legacy commitment to the mining and energy sectors in Latin America. A decade ago, the bank saw which way the wind was blowing and, noting that it was towards renewable power turbines, moved early into sustainable finance.

BNP Paribas is western Europe’s best bank for financing. It ranks first in the Dealogic bookrunner rankings in debt capital markets, ahead of Deutsche Bank in second place, JPMorgan in third, Barclays in fourth and HSBC fifth.

While it has been a leader for many years in European debt and loan financing, BNP Paribas has in recent years built out its secondary markets businesses. It now includes a full service offering in equities as well as fixed income currencies and commodities (FICC) across research, secondary markets, prime services, derivatives and capital markets.

Best Bank: BNP Paribas Fortis

Best Investment Bank: BNP Paribas

Always a strong candidate in this category, BNP Paribas has made great progress in its ambitious decarbonization commitments this year, in addition to prioritizing high social-impact and inclusive-finance goals.

The French bank has been busy with landmark deals and financial innovation.

The French bank has long had global scale in fixed income, now it has the same ambitions for its equity franchise too.

From energy transition to Libor transition, the French bank is the go-to firm for many corporate clients in a time of flux. This is the result of longstanding relationships and new investment in core sectors of the franchise.

The drive to make finance sustainable relies on robust data. This is something that the French bank has been working on for a decade.

BNP Paribas’s top private banker talks to Euromoney about his love of Brittany’s rough seas, the power of ESG, and digital’s ability to transform and improve every step of the client journey.

The rates sell-off is making it more expensive for high-yield and high-grade borrowers to access the bond markets. Maturities on offer are shortening, and it could be about to get much worse.

Crossed wires on an analyst call had many scratching their heads.

The acquisition of Bank of the West by Bank of Montreal is complementary and affordable, argues BMO’s chief executive Darryl White.

BNP Paribas has in effect ruled out using the proceeds of its US retail bank sale on big bank M&A in Europe.

Greater regulatory clarity, and perhaps a sale of Bank of the West, leave the French bank with the happy dilemma of what to do with excess capital.