At the end of May, the Moroccan Capital Markets Authority (AMMC) approved the merger of BDSI, the IT subsidiary of the BNP Paribas group, into BMCI, just a few weeks after the Moroccan bank acquired the 89% of shares held by BNP Paribas, thereby acquiring the entire share capital. This decision is in line with the trend, observed over the last few years, of French banking groups gradually withdrawing from their subsidiaries in Africa.
For many years, BDSI was one of the cornerstones of the French group’s banking policy on the African continent. Employing some 200 corporate staff members, not including contract workers, the company was responsible for managing the security of information systems for subsidiaries in African countries and overseas territories. « Before the merger, we were each assigned to Build and Run missions for the BNP Paribas Group’s African banks. Sometimes, the workload required the recruitment of external IT engineers for specific missions, » reports a former BDSI employee, contacted by TelQuel.
The end of the golden goose
BDSI enabled BNP Paribas to raise substantial funds. Although part of the French group, BDSI invoiced its services to the African subsidiaries at particularly high rates. The auditor’s special report following the close of the 2024 financial year details the rates applied, with services billed at between €407 and €718 per diem to BNP Paribas subsidiaries, including BMCI. In fact, in 2024, the year that marked the completion of the IT autonomy of the African subsidiaries, BMCI alone ordered over 150 million dirhams worth of services from BDSI. This was a real IT goose that laid golden eggs for the French group.
The problem is that the Moroccan bank will not be able to benefit from this financial windfall. Indeed, the transfer of BDSI shares into BMCI’s hands on March 19 came at a time when the process of making the management of each subsidiary’s IT department autonomous was being finalized, as highlighted in the BDSI Board of Directors’ report presented at the Annual General Meeting held in February 2025.
« In 2024, BDSI finalized its VITA program, launched in October 2022 to refocus all its activities exclusively on BMCI. The transfer of its activities to Algeria and to BCEF for the Overseas account has been completed. Each bank now manages its IT autonomously. The last African sites to be sold by the BNP Paribas group are still being monitored by BDSI, pending the changeover of their information systems », says the report.
In other words, BDSI’s 150 IT engineers will now have to devote themselves exclusively to BMCI’s IT tasks and activities. This is in addition to the teams already allocated to maintaining the Moroccan bank’s information system, creating duplication in a large number of positions. An overemployment synonymous with internal tensions.
BDSI’s Board of Directors is well aware of this. The internal document, a copy of which was obtained by TelQuel, states: « The major challenge for BDSI over 2025 will be to continue to preserve human capital in order to maintain its expertise and control its social risk ».
BMCI thus inherits a social burden that is difficult to make profitable, amounting to more than 6 million dirhams per month.
The atmosphere
For the time being, the Moroccan bank seems completely overwhelmed by the gloomy social climate in its offices. On the one hand, new arrivals are finding it hard to accept the new working conditions at BMCI. « When we were at BDSI, we enjoyed significant benefits. We used to be able to work remotely three days a week, but this is no longer the case, » said our source.
On the other hand, the Moroccan bank’s IT employees also feel they have been adversely affected by the new configuration. The salaries of BMCI’s IT engineers are lower than those of their new colleagues. Our source notes that at BDSI, monthly salaries often reached « 35,000 to 50,000 dirhams, whereas at BMCI, for an equivalent position, salaries hardly exceed 20,000 dirhams, and professional development is much slower ».
He goes on to explain that, because of the high salaries of engineers from BDSI, « BMCI is reluctant to release newly-integrated engineers (so as not to have to pay redundancy payments, editor’s note). Some of them got tired of waiting and left, while others cling to the hope of improved working conditions. »
Another point of contention: the social benefits of former BDSI agents. The latter are demanding that their years of seniority be maintained after the merger. And many testimonials point to the pressure exerted on former agents. « Like me, several of my colleagues have been intimidated and harassed to keep us quiet. At the same time, top management tried to temporize by promising us that our situation would be resolved: a major investor would be interested in buying the bank », confides a former BDSI engineer.
The investor in question is none other than Retail Holding, the company that controls the Label’Vie group. And yes, the holding company had, for a time, considered acquiring a stake in the Moroccan bank. But its interest cooled, as Riad Laissaoui, Managing Director of Retail Holding, explains. « We had discussions a long time ago: today, the subject is no longer topical. The approach was made at a time when relations between Morocco and France were tense, but since relations have improved, we’d say that the investment opportunity is lukewarm », stresses our contact.
Contacted several times by TelQuel, BMCI’s general management declined to respond to our questions.
Written in French by Amine Belghazi; edited in English by AngloMedia Group.
