What is BNP Paribas's technology stack?
BNP Paribas runs most of its technology in data centers it owns and brings cloud vendors inside them. IBM Cloud has been hosted in the bank's data centers since 2019; on April 29, 2025 the partnership was renewed for 10 years, with a new dedicated area planned for 2028 and GPUs on IBM Cloud for generative AI. In January 2025 the bank adopted Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer for its on-premises databases and said it has not placed any client data or production environments containing sensitive data in the public cloud. Core banking applications run on IBM Z, according to an IBM case study, and new applications are built on containers with Red Hat OpenShift. The AI layer is the internal LLM as a Service platform, deployed in June 2025 on GPU infrastructure in the Group's data centers, serving open-source models and Mistral AI models; Mistral AI was renewed for three years in May 2026. A five-year Google Cloud partnership signed on September 24, 2026 adds Gemini models and Gemini Enterprise under what Group CIO Marc Camus calls a multi-cloud and multi-model approach.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
Data as of Nov 11, 2026 · BNP Paribas profile updated Nov 1, 2026 · 23 sources cited on this page · 141 banks profiled on this site · Markdown
What are the layers of BNP Paribas's technology stack?
As BNP Paribas and its vendors describe them. The bank has not published an architecture diagram, and the sources below give no total IT budget or count of data centers.
| Layer | What is on the record | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dedicated cloud in own data centers | IBM Cloud hosted in BNP Paribas data centers since 2019; partnership renewed for 10 years; a new dedicated area planned for 2028 to give redundancy for critical services such as payments, as part of implementing the EU's DORA regulation | BNP Paribas release | April 29, 2025[1] |
| Public cloud policy | The bank 'has not placed any client data or production environments containing sensitive data in the public cloud'; for several years it has invested in private and dedicated cloud in data centers the Group owns | BNP Paribas release | January 9, 2025[2] |
| Databases | Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer hosted in BNP Paribas data centers, to centralize the databases run on Oracle on a single platform; the bank has used Oracle technology for over 20 years for part of its on-premises databases | BNP Paribas release | January 9, 2025[2] |
| Core banking | Strategic core banking applications and databases run exclusively on the IBM Z platform; development was modernized with IBM Developer for z/OS and Git, first within BP2I, a joint venture held equally by BNP Paribas and IBM, and for retail banking in France | IBM case study | Undated (retrieved November 11, 2026)[3] |
| Containers | Application modernization with a cloud-native approach based on containers (microservices) via Red Hat OpenShift, also built to deploy new applications in payments and payment systems | BNP Paribas release | April 29, 2025[1] |
| GPU compute | GPUs on IBM Cloud integrated with BNP Paribas' cloud infrastructure; the LLM as a Service platform runs on shared infrastructure in the Group's data centers equipped with GPUs | BNP Paribas releases | April and June 2025[1][4] |
| Model layer | LLM as a Service, operated by the Group's IT teams: a standardized and secure interface to open-source models, models from Mistral AI 'and soon models trained on internal datasets' | BNP Paribas release | June 5, 2025[4] |
| European model partner | Mistral AI: working together since 2023, a first Group-wide contract in 2024, renewed for a three-year period; the Group will also explore Mistral AI's Compute offering | BNP Paribas release | May 26, 2026[5] |
| Google Cloud | Five-year partnership for AI-optimized infrastructure, Gemini models and Gemini Enterprise; Gemini models to be integrated into LLM@CIB, the corporate and institutional bank's internal generative AI assistant. Google said in October 2026 that BNP Paribas is deploying Gemini Enterprise to more than 65,000 employees | BNP Paribas release; PYMNTS | September 24, 2026; October 2026[6][7] |
| Developer tooling | Group CTO Jean-Michel Garcia said the bank is evaluating multiple coding platforms at once, including GitHub Copilot and Cursor, partly as a hedge against vendor lock-in | SiliconANGLE | May 20, 2026[8] |
| Payments infrastructure | Camus says the Group's infrastructures drove the development of the technical foundations for Estreem and Wero in payments, and supported a business partnership with Apple | BNP Paribas article | Written June 12, 2026[9] |
| Cybersecurity | Nearly 5,000 cybersecurity experts across business lines and functions, with a budget of around 10% of the total IT budget | BNP Paribas FAQ page | Undated (retrieved October 5, 2026)[10] |
Who runs technology at BNP Paribas and what is the cloud plan?
Marc Camus, previously CIO of BNP Paribas Fortis, has been Group Chief Information Officer since 1 April 2025. He succeeded Bernard Gavgani, sits on the Executive Committee and reports to Chief Operating Officer Philippe Maillard.[11]
The cloud plan is to move workloads into the dedicated IBM Cloud zone rather than out to a public region. Christophe Boulangé, chief technology officer for cloud, told American Banker in April 2025 that the bank plans to move nearly half its applications to a dedicated IBM Cloud environment within its data centers by December 2026, that the zone will serve as a disaster-recovery site for critical applications such as payment systems, and that IBM's 'keep your own key' encryption was a factor in the choice.[12]
For AI, Group CTO Jean-Michel Garcia described in May 2026 a group-level framework with federated governance by business and function, connected through an internal AI factory and the LLM as a Service platform, with nearly 1,000 AI use cases underway. Camus has said a multi-cloud and multi-model approach lets the bank choose 'the right model, infrastructure and level of control' for each case.[8][6]
For 2026 Camus names agentic AI as the investment area and three priorities for the technology function: service continuity, security and cost control.[9]
What does the BNP Paribas profile record on this topic?
The rows below are the entries of the BNP Paribas AI strategy profile that bear on this page, as of Nov 1, 2026; the profile holds the full record of 30 dated moves, 21 use cases and 39 sources.
| Use case | What the record shows | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| LLM as a Service platform | Shared, GPU-equipped infrastructure in the Group's data centres offering open-source and Mistral AI models through a standard interface; deployed first in test phases (Hello bank!, general inspection) and intended to roll out progressively across the Group. | Rolling out | [4][13] |
| 'My companion' Group AI platform for employees | A Group AI platform that had onboarded 100,000 people by the Q2 2026 results; Bloomberg reported a progressive roll-out of an AI companion to all staff, and the Mistral announcement describes an employee assistant to summarise, reformulate and translate content, to be deployed in 2026. | Rolling out | [14][15][5] |
| HelloïZ virtual assistant at Hello bank! | The latest version, using generative AI (Mistral AI models) to understand and route requests with access to human advisers, has been deployed to more than one million clients since January 2026. | In production | [5] |
| KYC and compliance with Mistral AI models | On-premises generative AI for KYC steps where data sensitivity is high, automating low-value steps with expert validation of risks and decisions; Reuters reported Mistral is also used for compliance at BNP Paribas Fortis. | Rolling out | [5][16] |
| Preparing for AI-driven vulnerability discovery | The CIO said the bank is working to process and fix large volumes of vulnerabilities discovered at once; the Mistral partnership covers on-premises solutions for sensitive processes. | Announced | [16] |
| Coding-assistant evaluation | Group CTO Jean-Michel Garcia said developer use of coding assistants has spread across the Group over the past year and that several platforms, including GitHub Copilot and Cursor, are evaluated at once to limit vendor lock-in. | Rolling out | [8] |
| Date | Move | Detail | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 28, 2026 | Google Cloud CEO: Gemini Enterprise for more than 65,000 BNP Paribas employees | On Alphabet's third-quarter call Thomas Kurian said BNP Paribas is deploying Gemini Enterprise to more than 65,000 employees, as reported by PYMNTS; the 24 September announcement from BNP Paribas itself describes the Gemini Enterprise access as part of the five-year partnership. | [7] |
| Oct 28, 2026 | Q3 2026 results slides: AI 'a cornerstone of our 2030 plan' | The third-quarter presentation lists AI among the levers of the support-functions savings roadmap and gives AI its own slide: focus on high-impact use cases and cost control, shared platforms, cyber, Group AI strategic committees chaired by the CEO, 100,000 people onboarded to the 'My companion' Group AI platform, and a model-agnostic, multi-cloud, multi-model approach that includes the five-year Google Cloud partnership with Gemini 'in 3Q26'. | [17] |
| Sep 24, 2026 | Five-year Google Cloud partnership for agentic AI | BNP Paribas and Google Cloud announced a five-year partnership giving access to Gemini Enterprise and Gemini models, starting with agents for corporate credit memos in CIB and Gemini inside LLM@CIB; Nickel Assist already runs on Gemini for 200 customer advisers. | [6][18] |
| Sep 15, 2026 | Technology function commits to agentic AI investment in 2026 | In a statement written on 12 June 2026 and published on 15 September, the Group said it would invest in agentic AI in 2026 to meet business-line and function needs and optimise end-to-end processes, keeping service continuity, security and cost control as its three priorities, and cited the LLM as a Service platform as a foundation it had built in 2025. | [9] |
| May 26, 2026 | Mistral AI partnership renewed for three years | BNP Paribas renewed its partnership with Mistral AI, extending it beyond model access to software, solutions and co-development research, with priority use cases in internal knowledge and research, on-premises KYC solutions and client and employee assistants; the CIO also said the bank was preparing for AI-driven vulnerability discovery. | [5][16] |
| May 20, 2026 | Group CTO outlines AI factory and federated governance | At IBM Think 2026 Group CTO Jean-Michel Garcia said BNP Paribas had nearly 1,000 AI use cases underway around an internal AI factory and LLM as a Service platform with governance federated by business and function, and that it was evaluating several coding platforms, including GitHub Copilot and Cursor, partly to avoid vendor lock-in. | [8] |
| Mar 30, 2026 | BNP Paribas lends to Mistral AI’s data centre | CNBC reported that Mistral AI secured US$830 million in debt financing for a data centre near Paris with 13,800 Nvidia GB300 GPUs, backed by seven banks including BNP Paribas; the site was due to go live in the second quarter of 2026. | [19] |
| Jun 5, 2025 | LLM as a Service platform deployed | BNP Paribas announced an internal LLM as a Service platform, operated by Group IT in its own GPU-equipped data centres, giving entities a standard, secure interface to open-source models, Mistral AI models and soon models trained on internal data; initial test phase entities included Hello bank! and the Group's general inspection. | [4][13] |
| Mar 24, 2025 | Marc Camus named Group CIO under a new COO | BNP Paribas announced that Marc Camus, previously CIO of BNP Paribas Fortis, would succeed Bernard Gavgani as Group CIO from 1 April 2025 and report to Chief Operating Officer Philippe Maillard, appointed on 11 February 2025 to run a Technology and Operation Performance perimeter that includes IT Group and the Group Data Office. | [11][20] |
| Jul 10, 2024 | Group-wide Mistral AI agreement | BNP Paribas and Mistral AI signed a multi-year agreement giving every business line access to current and future Mistral AI commercial models, after pilots that started in Global Markets in September 2023 and spread to the wider Group from February 2024; models could be deployed on premises. | [21] |
| Dec 11, 2023 | BNP Paribas joins Mistral AI’s funding round | TechCrunch listed BNP Paribas among the investors in Mistral AI’s December 2023 round, led by Andreessen Horowitz; the Group’s own AI page says BNP Paribas took part in the €385 million round, and the Global Markets division had begun experimenting with Mistral AI models in September 2023. | [22][23][21] |
Does BNP Paribas use the public cloud?
Only within limits it has stated. In January 2025 the bank said it has not placed any client data or production environments containing sensitive data in the public cloud, and that it invests in private and dedicated cloud inside data centers it owns. The September 2026 Google Cloud agreement is described as strengthening a multi-cloud approach within its existing security and data governance framework.
Which cloud providers does BNP Paribas work with?
IBM Cloud, hosted inside BNP Paribas data centers since 2019 and renewed for 10 years in April 2025; Oracle, whose Exadata Cloud@Customer runs the bank's Oracle databases on premises; and Google Cloud, under a five-year partnership announced on September 24, 2026 that covers AI-optimized infrastructure, Gemini models and Gemini Enterprise.
What does BNP Paribas's core banking run on?
On the IBM Z mainframe platform, according to an IBM case study, which says the bank runs its strategic core banking applications and databases exclusively on IBM Z and has modernized the development environment with IBM Developer for z/OS and Git. Newer applications are built with containers on Red Hat OpenShift.
Which AI models does BNP Paribas run?
A mix. The internal LLM as a Service platform, deployed in June 2025 on GPUs in the Group's own data centers, serves open-source models and Mistral AI models, with models trained on internal data to follow. The 2026 Google Cloud partnership adds Gemini models, starting with the corporate and institutional bank's LLM@CIB assistant.
Who is BNP Paribas's chief information officer?
Marc Camus, who took the role on 1 April 2025 after leading IT at BNP Paribas Fortis. He succeeded Bernard Gavgani, sits on the Group Executive Committee and reports to Chief Operating Officer Philippe Maillard. Jean-Michel Garcia is Group CTO.
- BNP Paribas signs a new multi-year partnership agreement with IBM Cloud
- BNP Paribas signs a partnership with Oracle to further develop its cloud strategy
- BNP Paribas: modernizing development on IBM Z (case study; undated page, retrieved 2026-11-11)
- BNP Paribas provides its businesses with an LLM as a Service platform to accelerate the industrialization of generative AI use cases.
- BNP Paribas and Mistral AI extend their partnership to support the next phase of generative AI deployment within the Group
- BNP Paribas and Google Cloud Announce New Partnership on Agentic AI and Cloud Innovation
- Google Pushes AI Agents Into Commerce as Spending Pressures Cash Flow
- How Europe’s largest bank balances AI speed, sovereignty and model choice
- “We are rolling out next-generation technology at scale to better serve our clients and further enhance our employees’ experience.”
- Tech & Artificial Intelligence FAQ (undated page, retrieved 2026-10-05)
- BNP Paribas: Marc Camus is appointed Group Chief Information Officer
- BNP Paribas expands partnership with IBM Cloud
- BNP Paribas's gen AI startup incubator a step in AI journey
- Second Quarter 2026 Results presentation (23 July 2026)
- BNP Paribas Set to Roll Out AI Companion for All Staff
- BNP Paribas steps up Mistral partnership to bolster rapid AI defences
- Third Quarter 2026 Results presentation (28 October 2026)
- BNP Paribas forges agentic AI partnership with Google Cloud
- Mistral secures $830 million in debt financing to fund AI data center
- BNP Paribas: Philippe Maillard is appointed Chief Operating Officer of the Group
- BNP Paribas and Mistral AI sign a partnership agreement covering all Mistral AI models
- Mistral AI, a Paris-based OpenAI rival, closed its $415 million funding round
- Data & Artificial Intelligence (undated page, retrieved 2026-10-14)
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