A French banking group that is one of the largest retail banks in the world. Has been one of the main financial backers of private prisons and immigrant detention companies. In 2019 it announced it would stop providing loans to these companies.
BNP Paribas has been identified as one of the six major banks supporting private prisons and immigrant detention. As part of a syndicate of banks, BNP Paribas has extended hundreds of millions of dollars in a revolving line of credit, term loans, and bonds to the two largest private prison and immigrant detention companies in the U.S.: CoreCivic and GEO Group. These companies rely on banks and financing organizations to bankroll their operations and expansion into more carceral and punishment industries.
In July 2019, BNP Paribas announced it “it will no longer finance U.S. private prison operators.” It is unclear from the announcement what this would entail. Existing loan agreements with these companies will continue for a few more years, and the announcement did not mention the bank's continued investment in private prison companies.
- On April 26, 2017, University of Wisconsin-Madison students passed a resolution to call for the university's divestment from private prisons and corporations that build border walls, naming Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Honeywell, L-3 Communications, Boeing, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, BNP Paribas, Suntrust, US Bank Corp., and Wells Fargo.