The story
In 1971, the group started with one institution in Gabon called Bank of Paris and the Netherlands Gabon. That first bank was a joint venture between several private Gabonese investors, BNP Paribas and the Netherlands.
The group's first subsidiary was set up in 1987 under the name FIGADIM and was later renamed BGFIBail. In 1996, when Gabonese private investors acquired majority shareholding in the bank, it rebranded as the International Gabonese and French Bank known in French, as "Banque Gabonaise et Française Internationale" (BGFI). The Group's second subsidiary, Financiere Transafricaine (Finatra), was established in 1997.
In 2000, the bank rebranded to BGFIBank S.A., which is its current name. During the next ten years, the group has pursued an aggressive expansion policy by opening a subsidiary in Republic of the Congo in 2000, Equatorial Guinea in 2001, France in 2007, Madagascar in 2010, Benin in 2010 and Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2010. During the same decade, a plethora of non-bank financial subsidiaries were set up by the group, the majority being located in Gabon.
At the beginning of 2022, BGFI Cameroon announces the opening of a service dedicated to retail banking. The bank competes directly with First Bank and Société Générale in this market segment.
From Wikipedia’s article on BGFIBank Group, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4