The Banque Sino-Belge was created in 1902, as Belgium, like other foreign powers with presence in China, was entitled to payments from the
Qing Dynasty empire under the
Boxer Protocol. Alongside the
Société Générale de Belgique, its original investors included the (which would merge into the Banque Sino-Belge in 1905), the
Compagnie Internationale d'Orient (an affiliate of
Albert Thys's
Banque d'Outremer), and the
Antwerp-based
Banque de Reports, de Fonds Publics et de Dépôts. Its first chairman was Victor Stoclet (father of
Adolphe Stoclet), who was succeeded in 1905 by and in 1913 by
Jean Jadot who kept the position until his death in 1932. followed by
Tianjin in 1906, Much of that expansion was reversed from 1929 and 1935, as the economic context became less favorable. The branches in Romania and Turkey were sold, and the others were transformed into subsidiaries. In 1929, the Egyptian branches became the
Banque Belge et Internationale en Egypte (BBIE, also known as Belginter). The Paris branch then became a French bank, the one in London became a British bank in 1934, and the Chinese branches became a Chinese bank in 1935. Following new Belgian banking legislation in 1935, the holding company in Belgium was liquidated and the individual banking subsidiaries, as well as stakes in industrial companies, were taken over directly by the . In 1935, the BBE opened another subsidiary in
Hong Kong, which became its only operation in China during the 1950s as the operations in Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai were nationalized by the new Communist government. The BBE further developed its activity in Hong Kong, which at some point was the third-largest foreign branch network in the colony behind
HSBC and
Standard Chartered. In 1948, the Paris-based Banque Belge pour l'Etranger (France) was acquired by the
Banque de l'Union Parisienne. In 1950, the New York subsidiary of the London-based Banque Belge pour l'Etranger (Overseas) was converted into a subsidiary, as a precautionary measure against a scenario of Soviet invasion of Europe, and renamed as the Belgian American Banking Corporation, which in 1968 would be merged with U.S. affiliates of other European banks to form the European-American Banking Corporation,. These banks were chaired by Wall Street investment banker Jean Cattier , son of banker
Félicien Cattier. In 2001, the bank was eventually acquired by
Citibank. The London-based BBE (Overseas) was renamed Banque Belge Ltd. in 1957; in 1970, it absorbed the London branch of the , another affiliate of the , and in 1988 contributed its merchant banking operations to the newly created branch of
Generale Bank, while keeping private banking under the Banque Belge Ltd brand. In 1960, the BBIE in Egypt was nationalized and renamed the
Banque de Port-Said, and eventually absorbed in 1971 by
Banque Misr. On October 10, 2005, the merger was completed successfully with all branches of Belgian Bank renamed as ICBC (Asia). ==Banknotes==