The aim was to partly offset the financial dominance in the country of the Société Générale de Belgique which was viewed as not providing savings services to the broader Belgian population,[1] and was also perceived as too much controlled by Dutch interests.
[4] Starting in 1837 the Banque of Belgique experienced financial difficulties, in the context of territorial disagreements between Belgium and the Netherlands that would be eventually settled by the Treaty of London (1839).
[5] In 1842 the Banque de Belgique renounced its role as fiscal agent of the Belgian government that had been granted to it in 1835, which thus temporarily returned to the Société Générale.
[2]: 15 In 1848, international financial stress led the Belgian government to grant the bank's notes legal tender status and to suspend their convertibility, as it also did with the Société Générale.
In 1850, with the aim of restoring monetary stability, statesman Walthère Frère-Orban fostered the creation of the National Bank of Belgium, in which both the Société Générale and the Banque de Belgique were founding shareholders, after which both ceased to issue banknotes of their own.