Les Banques belges face à l'Etat: une rétrospective (1935-1993)

The 'mixed-type' banks which sustained Belgium's industrial expansion in the 19th and early 20th centuries were demerged in 1934-1935 into deposit banks on the one hand, and holding collapse of the banking system, restricted the bank‚s operational scope. Helped by the war economy and the rising national debt, many of these banks turned to the State, which became for a long period of time the principal beneficiary of their credits. The banks have frequently been accused of having done little to support the post-war economic growth - or at least in the private sector; their defence has been to refer to the statutory yoke which was inhibiting their initiatives. Was the loosening of this yoke during the 1960s a contributory factor in accelerating economic growth ? Or was it rather the vigorous growth which made it possible to relax these statutory regulations ? The Belgian banking system long remained sheltered from the economics crisis which broke out in the 1970s, no doubt helped by the profits which it was making from the rising public debt. But since the end of the 1980's, globalisation, deregulation and disintermediation forced the banks to carry out a number of restructuring measures. Their oligopolistic position in the financing of public debt has been weakened. In 1993 a reform of banking status, inspired by European Directives, led to the adoption of the German universal bank model and brought to a close the historical episode of the 'deposit bank'.