page_title: Crédit Agricole
section_title: Birth of Crédit Agricole and creation of the local and regional banks 1894 - 1900
hierarchical_section_title: Crédit Agricole / History / Birth of Crédit Agricole and creation of the local and regional banks 1894 - 1900
context_page_description: Crédit Agricole Group, sometimes called "la banque verte" due to its historical ties to farming, is the world's largest cooperative financial institution. It consists of a network of Crédit Agricole local banks, the 39 Crédit Agricole regional banks, and a central institute, the Crédit Agricole S.A.. In 1990, it became an international full-service banking group. It is listed through Crédit Agricole S.A., an intermediate holding company, on Euronext Paris' first market and is part of the CAC 40 stock market index. Local banks of the group owned the regional banks, in turn the regional banks majority owned the S.A. via a holding company, in turn the S.A. owned part of the subsidiaries of the group, such as LCL, the Italian network and the CIB unit.
  It was the title sponsor of the Crédit Agricole professional road cycling team from 1998 to 2008.
context_section_description: Crédit Agricole can trace its history back to the end of the 19th Century, and specifically to the Act of 1884 establishing the freedom of professional association, which authorised, among other things, the creation of farm unions and the foundation of local mutual banks. Société de Crédit Agricole was created on 23 February 1885 at Salins-les-Bains in the district of Poligny in the Jura region. It was the first of its kind in France.
  Drawing on this experience and in an effort to promote lending to small family farms, the Act of 5 November 1894, which had the support of Minister for Agriculture Jules Méline, paved the way for the creation of Crédit Agricole's Local Banks. The first Local Banks were set up by local elites, including agronomists, teachers and property owners, with farmers playing a minority role.
  In the early years, business was made up exclusively of short-term loans provided as advances on harvests, enabling farmers to live more comfortably. Medium-term and long-term loans were added later, making it possible to buy equipment and livestock.
  The 1894 Act did not confer any financial advantages, and the Local Banks soon faced financial problems, such as a lack of capital and insufficient collateral from small farmers. It was not until 1897 that the government addressed these problems by requiring the Banque de France to provide funding to Crédit Agricole through an endowment of 40 million gold francs and an annual fee of 2 million francs. A year later, the Act of 1898 resolved the collateral issues. Meanwhile, the Act of 31 March 1899 instituted a commission within the Ministry for Agriculture to distribute the government advances between the Regional Banks, which were also created at this time. These cooperative entities brought together the Local Banks in their catchment area and acted as their clearing organisations.
caption: Jules Méline spearheaded the creation of the first Local Banks
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