During World War I, Commerce Minister Étienne Clémentel was instrumental in passing the law of 13 March 1917 which established the local Popular Banks' cooperative status and granted them favorable financial and tax treatment, with intent to fill the void left by struggling local banks in the market for short-term lending to small businesses.

By the mid-2000s the central entity BFBP was controlled by 15 independent regional banks and also operated CASDEN and Crédit Coopératif as subsidiaries.

Natixis went through an initial public offering on 25 October 2006, after which BFBP and CNCE (the central entity of Groupe Caisse d'Épargne) each owned 35 percent of its equity capital, the rest being free float.

Natixis, however, soon suffered from poor capital allocation and risk management choices in the context of the Financial crisis of 2007–2008, including on investments into Bernie Madoff's funds.

[6] The companies merged in 2009 to form the Groupe BPCE[7] and retain their separate retail banking brands and branch networks.