National Bank of Belgium approves 2025 accounts showing a EUR 1.5 billion loss and carries it forward with no dividend

The National Bank of Belgium’s Council of Regency approved the 2025 annual accounts, which record a loss of EUR 1,521 million compared with a loss of EUR 3,679 million the previous year. The external auditor issued an unqualified opinion, and the loss will be carried forward with no fixed or variable dividend for financial year 2025 and no allocation to the Belgian State. The narrower loss mainly reflected a sharp reduction in net interest expense (up EUR 2,791 million), driven largely by lower interest expense on deposits held by credit institutions while yields on predominantly long-term monetary policy assets remained stable but low. This improvement was partly offset by a significant fall in monetary income allocated via Eurosystem pooling (down EUR 686 million), while the net result of financial operations improved (up EUR 79 million), including from lower losses on securities sales in the statutory portfolio and slightly lower unrealised losses on dollar-denominated securities. In its baseline interest-rate scenario at the balance sheet date, the Bank indicated that the bottom line would remain under pressure, implying a cumulative loss of EUR 1.2 billion over five years and a return to profitability within that horizon; a 25 basis point immediate change in policy rates is estimated to affect the annual result by EUR 167 million. Estimated minimum reserves and the desired medium-term level were put at around EUR 3.9 billion and EUR 9.9 billion, respectively, and the accounts continue to be prepared on a going-concern basis despite four successive years of losses.