BNP Paribas Fortis plans to strengthen specialist finance teams in concert with BNP Paribas

This development plan confirms the key role of BNP Paribas Fortis in European Corporate Banking and company finance activities.

BNP Paribas Fortis is determined to position itself to provide ever more comprehensive, seamless and high quality solutions for its corporate clients. Accordingly, the Bank is now planning to take a new step forward in its development plan by strengthening its specialist teams and business lines located in Brussels.

In concert with the BNP Paribas Group, a European leader in company finance, BNP Paribas Fortis now intends to reinforce its Specialist Finance Competence Centre, which provides Export Finance, Project Finance, Leveraged Finance, Telecoms financing and Corporate Acquisition Finance services. All these services are oriented 100% towards supporting the real economy.

The new plans call for BNP Paribas Fortis to expand the geographical reach of these activities which, since 2009, have been managed from Brussels. While today the Competence Centre services the three Benelux countries, Northern and Central Europe and Turkey, it will in future cover also Germany, Spain and the UK, plus the Middle East and Africa. ​ The plans do not relate to France or Italy, which are both designated Domestic Markets of the BNP Paribas Group.

These plans are now going through a process of consultation with staff representative organisations and will also require a final decision by the BNP Paribas Fortis decision-making bodies and the approval of the National Bank of Belgium. ​ If the plans are thus confirmed, the Brussels-based Specialist Finance Competence Centre will thereafter be called upon to service a wider perimeter in terms of management and products. All portfolios connected with these operations will consequently be managed in Belgium and the associated management teams, plus part of their staff, will join the BNP Paribas Fortis Corporate & Investment Banking (CIB) division in Brussels.

This initiative comes as part of overall efforts to drive forward and widen the Industrial Plan drawn up by BNP Paribas Fortis in December 2009, whose basic goal is to grow the European Corporate Banking and company finance businesses from a Brussels base on behalf of the entire Group, excluding the French and Italian domestic markets.

The initiative will provide BNP Paribas Fortis with an opportunity to enhance its position as one of the three key management locations of the BNP Paribas CIB division in Europe, alongside Paris and London. Since 2009, a number of Competence Centres – providing expertise in Trade Finance, Cash Management and Factoring - have been run from the Brussels base. Also managed from Brussels are the Group’s Corporate & Transaction Banking Europe (CTBE) operations, a unique network of 150 BNP Paribas Business Centres, which enables the Group to work closely with its clients in 16 European countries.