Crédit Lyonnais, Le

Crédit Lyonnais, Le, major French commercial bank noted for providing financial services throughout the world and for aggressive acquisitions in the late 20th century. The bank is headquartered in Paris.

Originally called Crédit Lyonnais, it was founded by Henri Germain on July 6, 1863, in Lyon, as a bank that would accept small deposits. Two years later its Paris branch opened. When the Franco-German War broke out in 1870, some of the bank’s assets were moved to London, thereby establishing its first foreign branch. Expansion continued in France in the 19th century, when Paris became its base and branches opened in the Middle East, major western European cities, Russia, and India. In the four decades before 1920, Crédit Lyonnais had more assets than any other bank in the world.

After World War II, the French government nationalized the bank, along with the country’s other three leading commercial banks. Among the bank’s innovations were automated teller machines (1956) and the Carte Bleue credit card (1967). It had branches on six continents and was the largest financial institution in Europe in the 1990s, when it was rapidly expanding and diversifying its holdings. However, a global recession led to serious losses, and in 1995 the French government announced what was then one of the largest bank rescue plans in history, which included the sale of many of Crédit Lyonnais’s holdings, among them the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio.

In 1996 a fire at the company’s Paris headquarters destroyed many documents. Financial difficulties led to a bailout of the bank by the European Union in 1998. Crédit Lyonnais was privatized the following year, with German insurance company Allianz AG and French bank Crédit Agricole each purchasing about 10 percent of the bank. Afterward, Crédit Lyonnais focused its business on full-service banking in France and institutional banking abroad. In 2003 Crédit Agricole acquired sole ownership of Crédit Lyonnais, renaming it Le Crédit Lyonnais (LCL) in 2005.