It doesn't seem that bonuses will be big at BNP Paribas this year
It’s Q4 2025 reporting season for Europe’s investment banks. Deutsche Bank was last week, UBS was yesterday, and BNP Paribas was this morning. The French bank didn’t do all that well.
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Across 2025, its fixed income, currencies, and commodities (FICC) sales & trading team posted revenue just 8% up on 2024 results. European rivals Deutsche Bank and UBS enjoyed greater growth (FICC up 13% and 31%, respectively). However, it was comparable to American banks Bank of America and Goldman Sachs (up by 8% and 9%, respectively). BNP Paribas seemed nonetheless content with the increase, which it credited “mainly” to “rates and options activities.”
Sadly the French bank's equities & prime services team did even worse. Revenue here was up just 10% in 2025 on 2024, well behind what any of the other major banks have posted. Fortunately, the bank was even happier with the increase, which was “across all segments and regions.”
BNP doesn’t break down investment banking revenue, but it did note that it had a “good increase” in both capital markets and advisory, mostly on account of a strong performance in the Americas – which was the best-performing region globally anyway in M&A, according to LSEG, formerly Refinitiv.
As such, bonuses will likely be scant. Across 2025 as a whole, the investment bank’s operating expenses increased by just 3%, from €10.7bn to €11.0bn. In Q4 alone, expenses declined ever so slightly.
Perhaps more worryingly, the investment bank’s risk weighted assets (RWA) declined from €278bn to €258bn, a decrease of more than 7%. How RWA is calculated is complicated, but just for reference, consumer & personal banking RWA declined by just 1%, and investment & protection services RWA increased by 33%.
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