National Bank of Belgium

The National Bank of Belgium (NBB; , , ) is the Belgian member of the Eurosystem. It was established by a law of and has been the monetary authority for Belgium from then until 1998, issuing the Belgian franc (albeit with interruption during World War I and duplication during World War II, when two National Banks with diverging loyalties operated in parallel from Brussels and London between July 1941 and September 1944).

Since 2011, the National Bank has also been Belgium's prudential supervisory authority, and since 2014, its national competent authority within European Banking Supervision. In the area of financial market infrastructure, it stands out as supervisor of Euroclear and lead overseer of SWIFT. Additional tasks include the management of foreign currency reserves; the collection, circulation and analysis of economic and financial information; a role of financial ambassador to international economic and financial bodies; and services for the Belgian State, the Belgian financial sector, and the general public.

The Belgian government has held half of the National Bank's equity since the aftermath of World War II. It thus remains one of relatively few central banks whose equity capital is partly in private hands, with stock being traded on Euronext Brussels. Provided by Wikipedia