Most of the private banks created during the July Monarchy were forced to close, and as a result there was no longer an efficient way to convert letters of credit into cash.

[5] Louis-Antoine Garnier-Pagès was appointed Minister of Finance on 7 March 1848 and that evening published a decree that created the first comptoirs d'escompte (discount counters) for credit notes, in Paris and other commercial centers.

[6] The book publisher Laurent-Antoine Pagnerre, one of the organizers of the Campagne des banquets that had led to the revolution in February, was appointed the bank's first Director and chairman of the board.

[9] The Comptoir national d'escompte de Paris was set up as a limited liability bank, a structure that the state had long opposed.

[12] A decree of 26 March established warehouses on the English model where manufacturers and traders could deposit their goods in exchange for a warrant that could be discounted at the CNEP "in anticipation of sale".

[12] Under an act of 10 June 1853 the bank's articles were amended to become closer to standard corporate law, with the Ministry of Finance no longer overseeing the appointment of officers.

[16] In 1854 the CEP was reconstituted[clarification needed] by Imperial decree for thirty years, starting from 18 March 1857, and authorized to increase its capital to 40 million francs.

[28] It was a clear desire to compete with British banks and trade on their own turf, into which French exporters and importers wanted to break in; the first branches were opened in areas of English influence.

In 1875, the CEP participated together with rival Crédit Industriel et Commercial in the creation of the Banque de l'Indochine, to which it contributed its branches in Saigon and Pondicherry.

By 1900 the Comptoir National d'Escompte de Paris was again listed among the leading financial institutions in France, after the Crédit Lyonnais and the Société Générale.

[44]: 72  In 1907, in coordination with the French authorities, it contributed its fledgling Moroccan branches to the newly created State Bank of Morocco in which the dominant partner was the rival Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas.

[40] Following the upheaval of World War I (1914–1918), in the period from 1919 to 1926 the leading banks in France by volume were Société Générale (32% – 36%), Crédit Lyonnais (30% – 32%), CNEP (20% – 23%) and Credit Industriel et Commercial (9% – 14%).

[46] With the growing power of the unions in the 1920s, the company made a series of concessions to employees, such as the introduction of a minimum wage and improved treatment of women.

From then until 1937 more machinery was imported for card sorting and collation, typewriting, calculation and printing from manufacturers such as Ellis, Powers, Underwood and Burroughs, with the addition of devices made in France by Bull in the 1930s.

[51] After World War II (1939–1945) a law passed on 2 December 1945 redefined the regulatory framework governing the banking industry and decreed the nationalization of the Banque de France and the four leading French retail banks: Banque nationale pour le commerce et l'industrie (BNCI), CNEP, Crédit Lyonnais and Société Générale.

[53] CNEP maintained the main lines of its strategy defined in the inter-war period: selective establishment of its headquarters, centralization of administrative and accounting operations.

[55] Eventually it grew into a large complex of 3,000 square metres (32,000 sq ft) and an iconic exemplar of French bank architecture.

The main section of the new building was built between 1878 and 1883, following the bank's choice of architect Édouard Corroyer, known for having worked under Viollet-Le-Duc and led the restoration of the Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey, to design it.

Corroyer took on the services of some of the best-known craftsmen of the time, including painter Charles Lameire [fr], mosaicist Giandomenico Facchina, and sculptor Aimé Millet, the last two of which had worked on the ornamentation of the Palais Garnier opera house.

The floor is constructed of glass blocks made by glassmaker Saint-Gobain, which allow this natural overhead lighting to penetrate down to the vaults, safes and securities depository in the basement.

[57] From the hall, a monumental staircase in ornate style, decorated with mosaics depicting flowers and birds, leads up to the management offices and the board room.

From the very outset, the building was equipped with the cutting-edge technological innovations of its era: electricity, elevator, central heating, a pneumatic tube system for sending internal mail and clocks displaying the time in major cities around the world.

A major overhaul was undertaken by the architect Anthony Emmanuel Béchu, opening on 10 June 2009 as the new headquarters of BNP Paribas Investment Partners.