Banque Transatlantique

Eugène Péreire founded Banque Transatlantique in 1881, and today it is one of France's oldest private banks. It is unusual among private banks in having a strong focus on serving expatriates, diplomats and international civil servants; it is also the wealth management arm of its parent group, CIC - Crédit Mutuel group, France's fourth largest banking group. Banque Transatlantique's head office is in Paris, and it has subsidiaries in Brussels and Luxembourg (Banque Transatlantique Luxembourg, est. 2002), a branch in London, and representative offices in Geneva, Hong Kong, Montreal, New York, Singapore and Washington, DC.

Today, Banque Transatlantique seeks to develop and expand its services in several key areas:

Eugène Péreire, son of Isaac Péreire, founded Banque Transatlantique in 1881; it had 609 shareholders and total assets in excess of 50,000,000 francs. He created the bank in response to the French government’s decision to cease state funding of transatlantic ventures. Thus, Pereire formed a private bank to complement his main management stake in the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, which he and his brothers had founded in 1855 as the Compagnie Générale Maritime.

Pereire envisioned a “Saint-Simonian banking philosophy” for the bank: its mission, first and foremost, was the economic and industrial development of nations. The bank began financing enterprises both within France and abroad. The bank’s largest undertakings began at the turn of the century when the new gas and electricity industries created a demand for distribution. Through the creation of energy transporting companies in Tunisia in 1884 and Morocco in 1911, the bank was able to finance the provision of gas and electricity to the capital and many surrounding regions in France. The bank also encouraged foreign investment by financing many public works projects that are still visible today, most notably in Casablanca, and by organizing a parliamentary visit to Tunisia in 1883. In 1884, Banque Transatlantique founded the Banque de Tunisie on the base of a pre-existing agency.

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