Unbelievably unprofessional in almost every aspect - from my colleagues to HR to the politics and hand-holding - the place feels like high school. HR is an absolute joke and there are no procedures or policies in place for practically anything. It is extremely political, as many have mentioned and as you would assume from a French company.
The bank spends way too much money paying ex-pats to live in the U.S., when they only add marginal value on a good day. A lot of finger pointing and blaming. No one actually wants to do work and constantly just shift blame. I will never know why they are spending so much money trying to grow the platform in the U.S. when nothing gets done without being approved by Paris anyways.
Management, even at the middle-management level is pompous, arrogant, and self-aggrandizing, oftentimes with no reasoning, rationale, or experience to defend their ideas, solutions, or suggestions. Nothing gets done on time - my team had a project that dragged on for four years that would've taken any competent person 30 minutes to fix. BNP is definitely not an innovator in the industry and never will be because of its self-imposed red tape and bureaucracy.
Everyone there is so average it isn't even funny. If you want to work with sub-average to average people who aren't professional, motivated, or nice this would be a great place for you. If you have half a brain, are professional, do good work, and are a pleasant human being, then you should avoid this place like the plague. As someone else noted, I don't think BNP has fired anyone ever - phenomenal environment for lazy, unmotivated people who just want to collect a paycheck.
