Bank of Brussels

(Banque de Bruxelles), the second largest joint-stock commercial bank of Belgium in terms of business volume and significance. It was founded in 1871 but prior to World War I played a secondary role. By 1925 it had absorbed several large banks. Prior to 1935 it provided both short-term and long-term crediting for a number of sectors of the economy. In 1935 in Belgium a banking reform was carried out which eliminated the system of so-called mixed banks. The Banque de Bruxelles, like the other commercial banks, kept only the functions related to short-term crediting. Long-term crediting was turned over to special credit institutions. The Bank of Brussels is closely tied to the basic sectors of the heavy industry of the country such as coal, metallurgy, and machine building. Its subsidiary bank, the Belgian Bank for Africa, was founded in 1929 in Brussels and transferred in 1949 to the city of Kinshasa (Congo). In 1968, the Bank of Brussels had about 840 branches in the country and an office in New York; it also maintained correspondant ties with banks in a majority of the nations of the world. On Mar. 31, 1969, the bank’s stock capital was 4 billion Belgian francs, the reserve capital was 2.0 billion francs, and deposits were 119.8 billion francs.