KBC Group

KBC Group N.V. is a Belgian universal multi-channel bank-insurer, focusing on private clients and small and medium-sized enterprises in Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia.

[6]: 116, 258  In 1903, the Middenkredietkas decided to reduce its exclusive dependence on the CGER and established a permanent relationship with the Volksbank van Leuven for the management of some of the farmers' savings.

[6]: 117 After World War I, the Middenkredietkas strengthened its structural cooperation with the Volksbank van Leuven, which in 1919 had transformed itself into a joint-stock company.

[6]: 265  The new entity, which kept the name Algemeene Bankvereeniging, was controlled by the Middenkredietkas; in 1930 it acquired BHN Ghent, which in the meantime had merged with a number of other local banks in East Flanders, and in October 1931 purchased another financial group, the Crédit Général de Belgique also known as Crédital.

It became the symbol of the Boerengroup's financial might, to the dismay of some of the Catholic clergy including Cardinal Jozef-Ernest van Roey who feared that the farmers' movement was drifting away from its religious roots and towards commercialism.

[6]: 237 With financial stress increasing in the early 1930s, however, the Middenkredietkas accumulated losses and had to declare a moratorium on its liabilities on 3 December 1934, followed on 8 March 1935 by a highly publicized liquidation process.

The restructuring, including a reimbursement of depositors that would only be completed in 1963,[6]: 260, 293  was directly managed by the Belgian government and led by Albert-Édouard Janssen.

In 1952, Kredietbank expanded into the Belgian Congo by establishing a branch in Léopoldville, then in 1954 acquired Banque Congolaise pour l’Industrie, le Commerce et l’Agriculture and renamed it Kredietbank-Congo.

[10] That operation grew into four branches, in Léopoldville (now Kinshasa), Bukavu, Elizabethville (now Lubumbashi), and Stanleyville (now Kisangani), but was discontinued in 1966 following Belgian Congolese independence in 1960.

In 1958, Kredietbank expanded into Wallonia through the acquisition of local banks, which it merged in 1961 into a newly formed subsidiary named Crédit Général.

[9]: 4 In 1999, KBC acquired majority control of Československá obchodní banka, a prominent bank in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

This includes financing projects in sectors such as the oil & gas industry, power, renewable energy, and Public-Private Partnership.

[24] One of Kredietbank's main shareholders in the postwar period, André Vlerick, was actively involved in public advocacy of the Apartheid-promoting regime of South Africa and support of its circumvention of sanctions.

[25] In April 2018, NGO OpenSecrets, in partnership with the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) at the Georgetown University Law Center, filed a complaint at the OECD, claiming that KBC and KBL had violated the Organization's Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises in their dealings with South Africa between 1977 and 1994.

"[26] As part of that process, OpenSecrets and CALS submitted a detailed document to the OECD contact points in Belgium and Luxembourg to support their claim.

[27] At the same time, hearings were held on the matter at South Africa's People's Tribunal on Economic Crime led by Zak Yacoob in Johannesburg.

[28] In December 1999, the Brussels commercial court ordered CERA Holding to pay an additional 2.48 billion euros to its cooperative shareholders, based on the finding that their contribution had been undervalued in the 1998 merger.

In 2017 the Belgian Climate Coalition published a report[33] charting the investments in fossil fuel of the four major banks in Belgium (KBC, ING, BNP Paribas and Belfius).

Hotel d'Eynatten, Leuven, in 1976, with the names of both Volksbank van Leuven and Kredietbank (KB)
Building at rue du Congrès 14 in Brussels, former Belgian head office of Kredietbank-Congo
Headquarters of K&H Bank , Budapest
Hotel d'Eynatten in Leuven, since 1925 part of the Volksbank van Leuven headquarters complex
Snyderhuis in Antwerp, former seat of Almanij
Artevelde Tower in Ghent
Former Brussels head office of Kredietbank, then KBC on rue d'Arenberg, 7
Former ABB building in Brussels, rue des Poissoniers 13