BNP Paribas and IBM announced a six year agreement for management, support and maintenance services of BNP Paribas infrastructure through their joint venture BNP Paribas Partners for Innovation (BP2I) created in 2004.

BNP Paribas Partners for Innovation (BP2I) is jointly owned by BNP Paribas and IBM for managing IT infrastructures.

Since 2004, BNP Paribas has reportedly grown from 95,000 to 200,000 employees, including 150,000 in Europe, and now caters to over 22m customers.

The partnership provides BNP Paribas with the innovations needed to respond to their rapid growth and globalization of the banking industry, IBM said.

BNP Paribas CEO Jean-Laurent Bonnafe said through this new agreement, IBM will continue to support the growth of the BNP Paribas thanks to the excellence of its services and to the high performance of its technologies.

BP2I will continue providing for six more years IT infrastructure management and monitoring with the highest standards of quality, safety and availability, the company said. BNP Paribas can manage up to 40 million transactions per day for retail banking in France alone, according to IBM.

IBM France General Manager Alain Benichou said the signing of this contract demonstrates the confidence BNP Paribas has in the expertise of IBM and reflects the intimacy and the involvement in this collaboration.