About

Groupe BPCE, France’s second largest banking group, operates predominantly through its two major cooperative banking networks Banque Populaire and Caisse d’Epargne, as well as through different subsidiaries including Natixis, Crédit Foncier, Banque Palatine and others. It does so in order to offer its 31.2 million customers a comprehensive range of products and services including savings and investment solutions, cash management services, financing solutions, insurance, and wholesale banking services. Since 2016 the global legal function has been headed by group general counsel, company secretary of the supervisory board and member of BPCE group executive committee Céline Haye-Kiousis. Upon joining the group, Haye-Kiousis’ first objectives have been to ‘modernise the global organisation of the legal function, enhance the legal function’s visibility within the group, enhance the dissemination of the legal culture, and encourage a more team spirit and “sharing approach” culture within the legal function’. In terms of structure, group legal has four divisions and is also comprised of the legal departments based in each group entity. According to Haye-Kiousis, ‘the legal departments of Banques Populaires and Caisses d’Epargne can rely on the central team in charge of corporate governance matters, headed by Pierre-Eric Fuzier, for the new wave of mergers carried out by the Group since 2016’. The banking, insurance and business partnerships division headed by Philippe Duclut, has also been commended for supporting the internal business divisions and group entities during the digital transformation of the group, launching products and services as well as facilitating a new customer relationship model and innovative payment solutions. Other important divisions include the global legal function development division which deals with group legal policies, monitoring of litigation and the provision of legal support to the public affairs division, headed by Valerie Ndjeinti. With around 800 in-house lawyers in total, out of which the BPCE central legal department employs 46 people, Haye-Kiousis says ‘there are many outstanding members in the team who contribute to ensure an efficient operational framework and synergies between the teams’.