Crédit du Nord


italic=no was a French retail banking network. It consisted of the following banks:
italic=no is fully owned by Société Générale. italic=no specialises on professionals and small business. It serves about 1.5 million customers in more than 700 stores.

History

italic=no started in Lille in 1848. After buying a number of small banks, it was, in turn, acquired by Paribas between 1972 and 1988 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. It rebranded itself, after working with Creative Business, with a new logo, graphics of its name, the architecture of its branches, and public relations. It changed its logo from an orange cube to a blue star.
In 1997, the whole italic=no network with the associated banks was acquired by italic=no from Paribas. Since 2000, italic=no is 80% owned by Société Générale and 20% by Dexia.
A full merger with Société Générale was achieved.
The customer-facing SG Crédit du Nord brand is applied to both the former Crédit du Nord, and the Société Générale branches in the North of France.
As with SG Crédit du Nord, the remaining Crédit du Nord banks' identities are also applied as regional brand names:
In 2010, the French government's Autorité de la concurrence fined eleven banks, including italic=no, 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.