Meeting with Bertrand Blanpain

laurencejob
May 7
5 min read

CEO OF ARKÉA BANQUE

ENTREPRISE & INSTITUTIONNELS

Originally from the Hauts de France, Palois by his wife, Bertrand Blanpain whose frantic professional pace leads him to the four corners of France, welcomes us around a coffee and a breathtaking landscape, green and still green.

This great leader has been passionate since 1997 for this intrepid little white ball and dedicates with happiness, his weekends on the greens.

This former tennis lover, second series in the 80’s, has exchanged his racket for a golf club, finding demand and perseverance in the practice of this discipline.

Managing Director of the Crédit Mutuel Arkéa Group, a banking group with more than 11,000 employees, and Chairman of the Board of Management of its subsidiary Arkéa Banque Entreprises & Institutionnels, this former ESCP graduate, holder of a DEA in political economy, puts its bank on a sustainable and responsible path.

Arkéa Banque Entreprises & Institutionnels is very committed to the territories, what is the uniqueness of your bank?

We are a medium-sized company, which gives us the advantage of being very close to our senior clients. Our short circuits promote the speed of decision-making and the assembly of tailor-made financing. The human size of our bank is an asset such as that of being a subsidiary of Crédit Mutuel Arkéa which is among the very first French bancassurance institutions. The CMA also adopted in 2022 the status of a company with a mission, which corresponds to the highest level of commitment in terms of environmental and social responsibility in the 2019 Pacte law.

Does this mean that your power to finance the economy gives you ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) responsibilities?

Absolutely, climate change becomes a reality when temperatures are too high or water is scarce in our municipalities.

We have created a Directorate for the Environmental Transition to support priority territorial projects on renewable energies such as photovoltaic, wind energy, methanisation, energy renovation of buildings, energy efficiency and water management.

Our territorial roots and our profile as a mutual bank naturally lead us to want to understand the issues, not only financial, and to dialogue with all stakeholders.

We wanted to accelerate the development of our range

ESG by enriching our offerings in credit, savings and services.

We want to encourage our clients to commit to an ESG path, support their transition projects and help them pilot their action plan. We offer original devices to ETl, institutional and real estate players, Arkéa Banque Entreprises & Institutionnels does not address the retail market. These schemes include extra-financial rating criteria and give our clients the opportunity to take advantage of several rate increases if they improve their ESG performance.

I also want our teams to be perfectly acculturated to “green culture” and the requirement for in-house training is supported.

To put it another way, we are committed to those who feel and be on a golf course at the time I speak to you in particular reasoning because biodiversity is a major subject. The acceleration of the effects of climate change and environmental degradation require to preserve resources and ecosystems, golf courses for the most virtuous of them contribute to protect areas of fauna and flora.

The sports partnerships of the Crédit Mutuel Arkéa group as those of Arkéa Banque Entreprises & Institutionnels are numerous, this link with sport is the signature Arkéa?

This is actually the signature of our historic territories that are Brittany and Nouvelle Aquitaine. Our partnerships such as the Arkéa Ultim Challenge, the Tour de France with Arkéa Samsic or the Arkéa Paprec for the Vendée Globe are intrinsically linked to the DNA of Brittany, cycling and sailing.

Likewise, our territorial roots naturally lead us to the south-west to accompany rugby with the UBB in Bordeaux or the Aviron Bayonnais in Bayonne, and golf through events such as the French Golf Tour, the Montauban Ladies Open or the Arkéa Omnium.

We also want to be alongside professionals like Gregory Bourdy or young talents like David Ravetto, Mathis Pansart or Oihan Guillamoundeguy.

These are times of exchange, debrief but it is also an important support because it is a difficult sport with many risks including psychological.

At the end of a game, we know each other better and it is a real asset to move forward together in confidence

Bertrand, you are since the origin major partner of the Arkéa Omnium, what motivated your support to this international competition?

In the first place, and it is important to point out, a group of entrepreneurs from the Basque Country, some of whom are our clients, wanted to relaunch the Omnium du Pays Basque. The project was ambitious, unifying and historically emblematic, and when Didier Picot told me about it, I accepted without reservation.

We are going to live this year the 3rd Omnium in Arcangues, and I note with satisfaction the rise of competition with the presence of very high level European golfers.

We are also a territorial bank and we have positioned part of our commercial forces on the accompaniment of the territory of the Pyrénées Atlantiques. Being present at major events materializes our territorial commitment and contributes to its vitality. Finally, golf is a very popular sport for our corporate clients, the Omnium allows us to invite them and share golfing highlights.

Golf remains a separate sport in business because it is an accelerator of professional relations. When you spend between 4h and 4h1/2, with a manager on a course, you have time to discuss his development projects, discover his hobbies, to know him better personally and in the same way to provide all information about the uniqueness and profile of our bank. At the end of a game, we know each other better and it is a real asset to move forward together in confidence.

Your professional pace is very strong, what does golf bring you in your rare moments of relaxation?

Golf allows me to think of something else, forget everything else because I am forced to concentrate on my game, golfers know well, if you are not focused, you play badly! You are obliged to empty your head and this allows to recharge the batteries in an exceptional way.

It is also the school of humility, in addition to focusing, you should take on yourself, stay calm. In golf, you play against the ground, against the course, and the course is a formidable opponent on which it is difficult to exert pressure!

In short, it is a demanding sport but one that gives me the balance I need to carry out my professional mission.

An anecdote about a course?

The first time I played the Old Course in Saint Andrew, we were accompanied by a taxi who asked us our level. At that time I had just over a year of golf and was very excited to play in this venerable institution!

He told us in a detached tone that it was going to be very complicated for us and ... indeed it was very very complicated!!

This driver who was Scottish played 2 of index .