National Bank of Belgium

The National Bank of Belgium (NBB; Dutch: Nationale Bank van België, NBB; French: Banque nationale de Belgique, BNB; German: Belgische Nationalbank, BNB) is the national central bank for Belgium within the Eurosystem. It was the Belgian central bank from 1850 until 1998, established by law of 5 May 1850 and 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; it also operates a central securities depository of its own, the National Bank of Belgium Securities Settlement System or NBB-SSS. 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.