BNP Paribas Global Markets posted record revenues in 2025, up 9.1% year-on-year, extending a compound annual growth rate of 7.2% since 2020. Its institutional client business grew faster still, up 12% year-on-year, and the bank again took wallet share, as it has every year for five years. Those numbers would stand out at any bank. They are more remarkable because BNP’s Global Markets, as an integrated business, only celebrated its 10th anniversary in December 2024.
“Clients want their sell-side partner to be consistent and to deliver on what they say they’re going to deliver – and combined ideally with steady incremental growth,” says Conor Davis, global head of institutional sales and investor coverage, who joined from Citi in late 2024. “That is very clearly what BNP Paribas has done since 2020.”
That consistency was tested early. When US tariff announcements sent volatility soaring in April 2025, BNPP stayed in the market. Its Thalia Dynamic Neutral US index rose 17% during the sell-off and ended the month up 15%. Its quantitative investment strategies (QIS) desk kept liquidity flowing, with intraday unwinds of more than $1 billion. Its hit ratio on Euro Stoxx 50 options jumped 35%, and it priced a €3.5 billion put-calendar trade carrying about €5 million of vega per leg. In FX, its volatility strategists had put clients long EUR/USD with topside optionality before the euro rallied more than 2% on 11 April.
Equity derivatives remain the engine. QIS assets under management passed €60 billion. New business included mandates from US state and European pension funds, $1.6 billion of QIS options for a US investment firm and 18 new strategies for 10 US insurers.
In structured products, BNPP finished 2025 top of the SPi EMEA league table with an 11.53% market share, up from 7.57% in 2020. Its US share rose from 1.35% to 7.09% over the same period. It climbed four places to fifth in the US and ranked second for CUSIP issuance, with notional up 24% in a market that grew 5%.
Flow grew alongside. In the US, the bank added more than 30 new hedge fund and asset manager clients and doubled its client base in two years. In Asia-Pacific, first-half flow trading revenues were 2.5 times the same period the previous year, and the convertible bond franchise tripled in six months.
We’re not just a European bank. We’re a European global bank
Conor Davis
The newly formed fixed income, currencies and commodities business line delivered at scale. Through significant risk transfer (SRT), BNPP securitised €25.1 billion across six asset classes. That included Resonance 12, the largest SRT in the market, on a €17 billion reference portfolio. The bank also led Scotiabank’s $720 million debut. It handled more than a third of standard credit index tranche volumes. It ranked first for US private credit collateralised loan obligation (CLO) new issues and resets in the first half, and printed an inaugural aviation CLO. It was also the top euro-denominated DCM bookrunner, with €161 billion across 767 deals. In FX, volumes of electronic options on its Cortex platform are up 630% since 2023.
“We’re not just a European bank. We’re a European global bank,” says Davis.
The breadth supports that. BNPP is the first international bank to offer cross-border hedging on Brazilian credit-linked structured notes, placing BRL1.1 billion ($220 million). Its Chinese structured credit business has grown 6.5 times in two years.
Technology underpins it all. Global Markets runs more than 200 AI use cases. Its in-house AI assistant, LLM@GM, handles around 250,000 requests a month and has been rolled out to 60,000 staff across the corporate and investment bank. AI email parsing has delivered more than 300,000 structured product quotes, and new payoffs now reach every client within 24 hours.
Euromoney rewards progress over the review period, not size. On that test no bank did more in 2025. BNPP grew revenue at a record pace and gained share across regions. It met the April market shock with liquidity rather than retreat and it built a credit franchise to stand beside its equities heritage. All of this was done organically, under a 2030 plan already in motion.
