BNP Paribas to keep sensitive data off public cloud despite Google deal

By Leo Marchandon

Sept 24 (Reuters) - BNP Paribas will keep some sensitive customer data and critical operations off public cloud infrastructure even after signing a five-year cloud and AI partnership with Google, the French bank said on Thursday.

The agreement gives BNP access to Google public-cloud infrastructure and Gemini models as the bank develops AI agents for internal work including corporate credit memos, sales, trading, research and structuring.

But the deal does not mark a wholesale move, BNP Group Chief Information Officer Marc Camus told reporters in a call.

"The fact that we signed this agreement with Google doesn't mean that we will get rid of our on-premise infrastructure," he said.

Medical information held by its insurance operations was an example of highly confidential data for which BNP avoids public-cloud solutions, he said.

BNP plans to keep using open-source models and to maintain its partnership with French AI company Mistral, with the providers used for different applications. 

The bank said it sees scope to use Google technology for less sensitive work such as invoice processing and data management. 

Google said BNP would retain ownership of its data, which would not be used to train, tune or refine its models. The bank said Google's AI agents would be authenticated, limited to the resources needed for their tasks, and monitored. 

BNP and Google declined to disclose the deal's value. 

(Reporting by Leo Marchandon in Gdansk; Editing by Matt Scuffham)