On the 1st of January 2023, Societe Generale Group announced that it had completed the legal merger of its two French Retail Banking networks, Societe Generale and Crédit du Nord Group. SG is now the Group’s new French Retail Banking.
„The bank SG aims to build a leading banking partner on the French market serving 10 million customers and be in the Top 3 of customer satisfaction. The completion of the merger is accompanied by the implementation of a new relationship model.” – according to the press release.
A merger that is progressing on schedule
Initiated in 2020, the merger of the two networks has mobilized thousands of employees, at all levels of the bank, to define the new banking model. It is carried out in compliance with all the commitments made at the launch of the project, in particular that of not leaving any city and to carry it out in the context of constructive industrial relations. Four agreements were signed in this respect with a majority of representative trade unions in 2021 and 2022.
The legal merger is „an important step that marks the effective creation of the new bank”. The new organization is now in place and all management teams have been appointed, both at headquarters and in the regions. The IT migration of Crédit du Nord Group’s banks to Societe Generale’s information system will be carried out in two stages during the first half of 2023. Branch groupings will begin in the second half of 2023, with a first step of 150 reconciliations (30%). 80% of the groupings will be completed by the end of 2024, and 100% by the end of 2025.
The new SG brand will be gradually deployed on the facades of our branches, with a first step of 1,000 branches affected by the end of 2023. To support the launch of the new bank SG, an advertising campaign will start from 15 January and will continue throughout the year.
“We are very pleased to start 2023 with the launch of SG, the new French Retail Banking. The legal merger of Societe Generale’s networks and the banks of Crédit du Nord Group on 1 January 2023 is a major step, completed within the planned deadlines. This new bank is not only a banking merger. It is also the implementation of a new model, which will allow us to offer our 10 million private, business and corporate customers, throughout the territory, more proximity, responsiveness, expertise and responsibility. Our goal is to become an even more essential player in the French market, recognised for the quality of its expertise, its speed of execution, its regional roots, and to achieve the Top 3 customer satisfaction,” said Sébastien Proto, Deputy General Manager, in charge SG French Retail Banking Network, Private Banking and their IT division.
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
