The challenges of recent changes in the French cooperative banking groups[Les enjeux des mutations récentes des groupes bancaires coopératifs français]

French cooperative banking groups have profoundly changed since the 1990s. The result of both constraints and opportunities, the changes have involved internal restructuring as much as external growth. The article shows a transformation in groups towards a universal bank but with hybrid structures incorporating both cooperatives and conventional companies. This hybridization of cooperative groups may eventually pose problems in terms of defining the objectives of the group and its components, the conflict over sharing the wealth created and power, and the potential for competition arising between parts of the same group. More broadly, this transformation has shifted the balance of power among the different stakeholders—managers, employees, board members, cooperative members and now also investors—creating a challenge that cooperative banking groups will have to meet in order to maintain their cohesion and capacity to develop.