The Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) has granted a licence to Credit Agricole, a leading French banking group, to establish a presence in Bahrain.

The Bahrain office will represent Credit Agricole (Suisse) SA, a wholly owned subsidiary of Calyon, the corporate and investment banking arm of the Credit Agricole group.

Geneva-headquartered Credit Agricole (Suisse) is the group’s main centre of private banking expertise. It is also active in transactional commodity finance and capital markets, as well as corporate banking.

Assets under management by the bank totaled $56.3 billion at 2007-end.

“The CBB is delighted to welcome Credit Agricole (Suisse) to Bahrain’s well-diversified international financial centre,” said Ahmed Al Bassam, director, Licensing & Policy, at the CBB.

The Credit Agricole group has operated a wholesale banking operation under the name of Calyon in Bahrain since 1976.

The new licence for Credit Agricole (Suisse) is in addition to the existing Calyon operation. – TradeArabia News Service