In less than five years, the International Retail Banking and Financial Services (IRFS) has doubled in size, both in terms of the number of employees and customers, while its revenues have risen from 4.9 to 8 billion euros and its presence expanded to 60 countries.
The unit’s geographic balance has also changed, as fast-growing emerging markets represent a greater proportion of overall activities and the number of countries where all IRFS businesses operate has also increased.
As a growth engine for the group and a spearhead for its international retail development, IRFS has begun a new chapter by adopting a new name, BNP Paribas International Retail Services, which expresses fresh strategic momentum and a more integrated organisation.
“BNP Paribas International Retail Services expresses our goal of expanding the deployment of BNP Paribas’ integrated banking model. By combining the strengths of our three business lines, we aim to achieve our new objective: more than 70 million customers by 2010, including nearly 6 million new customers in our retail banking networks,” says Pierre Mariani, member of the executive committee and head of the IRS core business.
The BNP Paribas International Retail Services core business is now organised around three business lines focused on delivering retail services: Branch Banking in the United States and emerging markets; Personal Finance; and Equipment Solutions.
With this new organisation, the IRS core business has entered a new phase in the deployment of the integrated BNP Paribas model across all countries, with closer coordination between its branch banking networks and retail financial services focused on four objectives: expand the client franchise, systematically pursue cross-selling, deploy new sales models and strengthen operational efficiency.
BNP Paribas International Retail Services also intends to strengthen its leading positions in each of its businesses and to be recognised as a reference in its markets, thanks to customer satisfaction and the growth and profitability of its activities.
The goal of the IRS core business is to earn one third of its revenues in emerging markets by 2010, which would represent a major contribution to achieving BNP Paribas’ objective to reach 15% of group revenues in emerging markets through organic growth.