Volksbank van Leuven, local savings banks and Middenkredietkas On 17 July 1889, a group of prominent Catholics founded the ("People's Bank of Leuven"), a cooperative bank to finance the development of business in and around
Leuven. In the early 1890s, the
Boerenbond farmers movement, similarly inspired by Catholicism and
corporatism and also based in Leuven, led the development of burgeoning network of rural cooperative banks inspired by the model created in Germany by
Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen. The first of these ("savings and loans associations") was created in 1892 in the village of
Rillaar near
Aarschot. By 1895, there were 24 ; that year, the Boerenbond established the
Middenkredietkas ("central credit fund") as a central body to help them manage their customers' savings and access funding from the
Caisse générale d'épargne et de retraite, a national financial institution. In 1902, the network had grown to 190 local savings banks, and would further expand to 378 by 1913 and 1099 in 1934. 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.
Algemene Bankvereeniging, Bank voor Handel en Nijverheid, Almanij 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. The two institutions jointly sponsored the creation or acquired control of several other banks in Dutch-speaking Belgium, including the
Algemeene Bankvereeniging (ABV, "General Banking Association"), founded in 1921 in
Antwerp, and two banks named (BHN, "Bank for Trade and Industry") respectively in
Ghent and
Kortrijk. On 1 October 1928, ABV and the Volksbank van Leuven merged. 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 also known as . The latter combination resulted in the creation in 1931 of the holding company
Almanij in Antwerp, which received a number of industrial company stakes. As a consequence, the Boerenbond-controlled banking cluster became one of Belgium's largest credit institutions, able to rival the
Banque de Bruxelles and
Generale Bank. The
Boerentoren high-rise building in Antwerp, financed by ABV, was the second-tallest skyscraper in Europe at the time of its completion in 1931, just behind Madrid's
Telefónica Building (1929). 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.
Kredietbank in
Antwerp (1931) 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, was directly managed by the Belgian government and led by
Albert-Édouard Janssen. On 9 February 1935, ABV and BHN Kortrijk merged to form the , commonly known as
Kredietbank (KB). The Kredietbank was registered in Antwerp but its actual head office was established in
Brussels.
Fernand Collin, who became its president in 1938, defined the Kredietbank as an independent bank with a decidedly
Flemish character which would be an instrument to further Flemish economic growth. In 1943, Almanij, which had become Kredietbank's majority owner during the 1935 restructuring, underwent a capital increase. As a consequence, the Middenkredietkas (in liquidation) became a minority shareholder, and the control of the group was transferred to a group of families later known as the "Almanij Syndicate", which by the 1970s included Collin and
André Vlerick, a son-in-law of
Gustave Sap who had been associated with the Algemeene Bankvereeniging since its creation. In 1949, Kredietbank established its first international subsidiary, Kredietbank SA Luxembourg (known as KBL). In 1951, Kredietbank's shares began listing on the
Brussels Stock Exchange, even though Almanij retained control. In 1952, Kredietbank expanded into the
Belgian Congo by establishing a branch in
Léopoldville, then in 1954 acquired and renamed it Kredietbank-Congo. 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 . Kredietbank further built up its international network in the late 1960s, with the opening of offices in
New York and
Mexico City, then in
Johannesburg,
Melbourne,
Atlanta,
Tehran,
Tokyo,
Madrid, and
Los Angeles, and branches in
New York,
London, the
Cayman Islands, and a subsidiary in
Geneva. In 1970, together with six other European institutions, Kredietbank established the
Inter-Alpha Group of Banks. In 1979, controlling ownership of KBL was transferred from Kredietbank directly to Almanij. In 1982, Kredietbank acquired majority ownership of
Bankverein Bremen AG, originally founded in 1889 as
Bremer Vorschussverein, and renamed it
Kredietbank-Bankverein AG in 1990, also known as or BKB. In 1996, KBL absorbed . In 1997, Kredietbank expanded into
Hungary through the privatization of
K&H Bank.
ABB and CERA During the Middenkredietkas's liquidation in March 1935, the Boerenbond renamed its rural cooperatives as , and formed a new central body in Leuven, the (CKL, "Central fund for agricultural credit"). In 1941, its insurance operations developed since the late 19th century were renamed (ABB, "Belgian Farmers' Union Insurance") and in the following decades became one of the largest Belgian insurers. The number of Belgian Raiffeisen banks was about 800 in the early 1970s, then further decreased through consolidation to reach 218 in 1996. In 1970, the CKL changed its name to ("Central Raiffeisen Fund"), which in the late 1970s was abbreviated to CERA; it moved from downtown Leuven to an expansive new office campus in the city's outskirts in 1991. In the mid-1980s, a new legal framework led to the creation in 1986 of CERA Bank as a fully-fledged central banking entity. ==1998 Merger and subsequent history==