In addition to its 21 branches in the Canton of Geneva, the group is also present in Lausanne, Zurich, and Basel in Switzerland as well as in France (Lyon, Annecy, Paris), and it maintains two representative offices in Dubai and Hong Kong.

[6] The goal of the new bank is to finance the activity of small and medium-sized enterprises in the Geneva region while encouraging the population, especially the working class, to accumulate savings.

[11] From a statutory perspective, the bank is a corporation under public law: the municipalities own the capital but the institution does not possess a government-backed guarantee.

[8] The project came to fruition in the early 1990s in the context of increased competition and crisis in the Swiss real estate market, which generated significant losses for local banking institutions inciting them to pool their costs.

[8][14] In 1992, the Grand Council of Geneva passed a resolution of principle in favour of a merger of the two establishments; the citizens of the city later approved the project in 1993 after a vote.

[16] In 2000, the institution had to be bailed out and was recapitalised by the Canton of Geneva, with the help of an ad hoc foundation (the "Fondation de valorisation") which assumed over five billion francs in loans.

[17] The proceedings were dismissed: in the absence of evidence, the Prosecutor General of Geneva, Bernard Bertossa, judged the complaint as unfounded and closed the case without further action on 14 November 2001.

[15][18] However, in March 2001, the State of Geneva and BCGE brought civil actions against the former management of the bank, accusing them of having voluntarily drawn up fraudulent documents on the financial situation of the institution.

[14] For the same reason, in February 2003, the State of Geneva launched a civil action against the audit firm Ernst & Young which had validated the accounts.

[14] An investigation was opened in 2009 and Dominique Ducret, former president of the bank, Marc Fues, former director, René Curti his deputy, as well as two auditors from Ernst & Young were tried.

[14] According to the indictment, the accused having discovered that in 1996 the financial and accounting situation of BCGE was in danger, partly because of debtors at risk, concealed the information from the Board of directors by publishing falsified annual results from 1996 to 1998.

[20] According to Attorney General Daniel Zappelli, the three BCGE officials hid the catastrophic situation of the establishment to keep their positions, salaries and bonuses.

[19] The verdict was rendered on 22 July 2011 by the Criminal Court: Marc Fues and René Curti were found guilty of forgery and acquitted of the other charges.

[22][23][24] In 2017, the Ensemble à Gauche party drew up a regularization bill (PL 12238) aimed at the Banque Cantonale de Genève, which was to reimburse the sums associated with its bail-out in 2000, i.e. 3.2 billion francs.

This decision was confirmed by the Federal Supreme Court in 2020, on the grounds that this would result in the bank being placed in a situation of over-indebtedness and would then be forced into bankruptcy.

The institution was placed in category 2, designating banks not incriminated by the US Department of Justice, but which have American customers who could have violated US tax law.

[31] In 2016, BCGE celebrated its bicentenary by organising one event per month throughout the year, with special focus on Geneva's culture and economic history.

[32] For one of the events, BCGE is partnered with Handicap International to renovate the Broken Chair at the Place des Nations in the north of the city.

[41][42] The main activity of the institution is day-to-day banking (management of deposits and granting of credits) aimed at a client base made up of individuals and companies.

[60] In parallel with its initial banking activities, the BCGE group has founded or acquired specialised subsidiaries to diversify its businesses in the field of finance: