They belong to the same group but that didn’t prevent them from shooting each other in the legs and getting their hair cut. After fifteen years of internal conflict, the National Confederation of Crédit Mutuel (CNCM), the central body of the bank, and Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, which brings together the federations of Brittany and the South-West, have finally just buried the hatchet in signing a memorandum of understanding on Wednesday. The “protocol of agreement” voted “unanimously” by the CNCM board of directors aims to preserve “the cohesion of Crédit Mutuel” while guaranteeing the “autonomy” of its nineteen federations, including those of Arkéa, underline the two parties in a press release.
Internal tensions had turned into a legal conflict in 2014, opposing Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, whose head office is located near Brest, and the CNCM, the central body which oversees all of the group’s federations.
Arkéa wanted to become independent in 2018
Fears about a possible split in the group peaked in 2018 when the Breton branch declared that it wanted to take its independence through its then president, Jean-Pierre Denis. This was followed by a demonstration in front of Bercy of thousands of employees dressed in red and marching to cries of “Vive Arkéa”. The sometimes latent, sometimes open conflict has resulted in numerous lawsuits and a multitude of acrimonious exchanges between the two entities.
Discussions between the two parties had resumed in the summer of 2022, the CNCM then taking a step towards Arkéa, instructing its president Nicolas Théry, “to put an end to a conflict which is neither in the interest of the members, nor the height of the current and future economic situation. »