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Italian bank is the latest dot-brand to bow out

Kevin Murphy, April 10, 2019, Domain Registries

Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, Italy’s sixth-largest bank, has become the latest new gTLD owner to tell ICANN it no longer wishes to run its dot-brand.
It’s the 47th new gTLD to request termination of its registry contract. The affected TLD is .bnl.
ICANN has already decided not to transition the contract to a new owner, as usual.
Also as usual, the gTLD has never been used above and beyond the obligatory nic. site.
What makes this termination somewhat noteworthy is that BNL is a subsidiary of French bank BNP Paribas, which is one of the most enthusiastic dot-brand owners out there.
BNP Paribas dumped its .fr and .net domains in favor of its domains under .bnpparibas back in 2015 and currently has roughly 250 domains in its zone file and dozens of live sites.
The domain mabanque.bnpparibas, used for its French retail banking services, was for some time a top 10 most-visited new gTLD domain names, per Alexa rankings, but that has slipped as new gTLDs’ popularity have increased overall.