Will Belgium clear the final hurdle? Belgium's leap of faith
Over the past nine months Belgian bankers have been hounded by the idea of a Belgian super-bank. Those who are tired of constant speculation know exactly who to blame.
Last August Daniel Cardon de Lichtbuer, chief executive of Banque Bruxelles Lambert (BBL), advertised his search for a partner capable of lifting BBL out of the regional Benelux market and into the international banking league. "I would like to leave the bank at the end of 1996 having set in motion an alliance with one of the world's banking giants," he said.
It was an attractive idea. A merger between BBL and the nation's largest bank, Generale Bank, would have created an institution with assets of more than Bfr11 trillion ($350 billion) that would have ranked among the world's top 15 banks by assets. This captured the imagination of the local financial community, which tagged the scheme Grande Banque Belge, or GBB for short.
The government is concerned that a single currency will eliminate Belgian banks' business advantage in Belgian francs. "Belgian banks will lose the protection and supremacy the Belgian franc currently gives them," says Elio di Rupo, economics minister.
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