19th century The Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations succeeded the
Caisse de garantie et d'amortissement, created by
Napoleon and liquidated in 1816 following his demise. It was the brainchild of
Louis-Emmanuel Corvetto, Finance Minister under
King Louis XVIII, in a context of government debt distress in the aftermath of the
Hundred Days turmoil of 1815 and of Louis XVIII's distrust of the
Bank of France given its Napoleonic baggage. Article 110 of its founding law of 28 April 1816 reads: "Deposits, consignments and services relating to the
Legion of Honour, to the channel company and to pension funds [...] will be administered by a special body under the name Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations." Three executive orders of 3 July 1816 further defined the major areas of activity of the new entity: consignments (), namely safekeeping funds or assets that are subject to ongoing legal disputes; voluntary deposits from individuals or public bodies and funds from the legal professions; and pension funds. Additional activities included the management of accounts for the Legion of Honour, and financial services for the French army. By law, the CDC also was directed to use its funds mainly to purchase public "annuities" and therefore contribute to the funding of the French state. Under Prime Minister
Joseph de Villèle, the French government started to leverage the CDC to finance new infrastructure, inaugurating its role as France's
development bank. The CDC granted its first local infrastructure loan for the development of the Port of
Dunkirk in 1822, and at the same time acquired securities issued by the Compagnie des quatre canaux, a canal investment venture. In 1825, it was tasked with the indemnification of former colonists in
Saint-Domingue under the settlement that gave rise to the
Haiti Independence Debt. From 1837, the French parliament decided that the funds collected by the local
caisses d'épargne (French
savings banks)' savings accounts should be centralised and invested by the CDC. This provision was extended to the postal
passbook (later
Livret A) upon the creation of the
Caisse nationale d'épargne in 1881. In 1850, the CDC started acquiring stakes in newly created railways companies. That same year, in addition to its mandate to manage the civil service pension fund held since 1816, the CDC was tasked with managing France's first old-age pension fund (, CRV), which extended the personal protection scope to a much broader range of beneficiaries. The first two public life insurance institutions set up in France, the National Insurance Fund in the event of Death (, CNAD) and National Insurance Fund in the event of Accidents (, CNAA), were also managed by the CDC from their creation in 1868. Since 1890, under a mandate from the French state, the CDC has been receiving funds deposited by individuals at notaries, notably during inheritance or property transactions. This line of operations has subsequently widened to include funds from company administrators and legal representatives, court clerks, and bailiffs. The CDC was further entrusted with the management of new mandates like the Social Cohesion Fund (, FCS) which guarantees loans to individuals and legal entities and grants loans to job-seekers or welfare recipients who create their own company.
20th century In 1905, the CDC granted its first loans to social housing out of its own funds. In 1908 the French state entrusted it with the management of its housing loans and the French law of 26 February 1921 authorised loans on savings funds for low-cost housing (HBM), prefiguring the first social housing (,
HLM). The French law of 1928, known as "Loi Loucheur", did not change this mission, rather it strengthened the CDC's role through a large scale programme of 200,000 low-cost homes and 80,000 moderate-rent homes. By the end of 1930, CDC loans to local authorities allowed for the creation of a national telephone network. The next year, the 1931 Finance Act authorised the CDC to invest inflows to the savings funds in corporate shares and bonds. Under the
Vichy regime, the CDC received funds confiscated from the French Jewish community. These funds were later only partially restored to their legitimate owners after France's liberation. In the afterwar period, the CDC became a main catalyst of France's reconstruction, often in partnership with the
General Planning Commission. The CDC's role of funding social housing was also strengthened in that period by the implementation of different regulated saving centralisation systems. Several subsidiaries were founded in the 1950s: Société Centrale Immobilière de la CDC (SCIC), a real-estate company in 1954 (rebranded
Icade in 2003); Société Centrale pour l'Équipement du Territoire (SCET) in 1955, a service provider for local infrastructure companies (, SEM); Villages Vacances Familles in 1958, specialising in social and family tourism. In 1959, the CNAD and CNAA merged to form the Caisse Nationale de Prévoyance (CNP), later rebranded
CNP Assurances and publicly listed in 1998. CNP Assurances was in 2013 the number one personal insurance company in France. Since 1960, the CDC has been decentralised into 25 regional management units (, later ), one for each French region, which implement the group's strategy in their respective territorial remit. In 1963, the CDC created the Société Forestière, a forestry company. In 1966, the CDC created the Local Authority Infrastructure Support Bank (, CAECL), which in 1987 became the
Crédit Local de France (CLF), itself merged in 1996 with
Crédit Communal de Belgique to form
Dexia. In 1970, the CDC created another subsidiary, Scetauroute, for the development of motorway infrastructure. The development of services has since widened to the public transport sector for passengers with
Transdev in 1990, to engineering infrastructure with
Egis in 1998 (via the merger of Scetauroute and other engineering subsidiaries) and lastly to the business of ski and leisure park operation with the
Compagnie des Alpes in 1989. From 1994, the CDC has invested in SMEs with the SME Innovation programme, to strengthen their equity, encourage innovation and support the risk capital market. CDC Entreprises succeeded CDC PME in 1998. In 1999, the CDC formed a new subsidiary, CDC IXIS, that took over its commercial banking activities, in order to mitigate competitive distortions associated with its role in the financial sector.
21st century In 2000, the CDC was entrusted with the creation of the cyberbase programme, the aim of which was to deploy digital public spaces over the entire French territory to encourage the development of Internet use and new information technology. Since 2003, it has been investing in the spread of Digital Work Spaces (ENT) which offers digital services to educational institutions (schools, secondary schools and universities). Also in 2000, the CDC initiated a program of climate research that developed into various projects such as CDC Climat and Novethic. In 2005, it was a sponsor of the
European Carbon Fund and of France's national register of
greenhouse gas emission quotas. In 2008, it sponsored a "compensation fund for biodiversity" via its specialised subsidiary CDC Biodiversité. In 2001, the CDC formed Eulia, a joint venture with the
Caisse Nationale des Caisses d'Épargne (CNCE), to which it contributed CDC IXIS. In 2004 the CNCE took full control of Eulia and therefore of Ixis, and in 2006 had it merged with
Natexis Banques Populaires to form
Natixis, which subsequently evolved into a fully owned subsidiary of
Groupe BPCE. In 2004, Caisse des Dépôts acquired all the equity of the Société Nationale Immobilière (SNI), the number one social landlord in France, which it subsequently rebranded as . Also in 2004, the CDC participated in
Qualium Investissement, aimed to support venture capital activity. It was strengthened in 2007 by the creation of the Strategic Investment Fund (, FSI). As a consequence of the
2008 financial crisis, the CDC incurred a loss in 2008 for the first time in its history. In 2013, CDC Entreprises and the FSI merged to form
Bpifrance, half-owned by the CDC. That same year, the CDC acquired 20 percent of the newly formed
SFIL. Since 2014, the CDC has been developing its role as trustee and lender on behalf of third parties inherited from its original
consignations business, as well as managing the Personal Training Account (, CPF), dormant accounts and the Programme of investments for the future (, PIA). In January 2016, following France's 2015 reform of regions, the number of regional CDC units has been reduced to 13. In 2018, the CDC reorganized its activities supporting France's local governments as a new unit branded the , which is not however a bank in a legal sense. In 2020, a broad restructuring of state-owned assets led to the CDC becoming sole owner of SFIL, with only one residual share kept by the French state, and 66-percent owner of
La Poste, with the French state owning the remaining 34 percent. As part of that same restructuring, CNP Assurances became majority-owned by
La Banque Postale (LBP), itself fully owned by La Poste. In 2021-2022, LBP acquired all remaining shares to become the sole owner of CNP, which was correspondingly delisted. ==French operations==