Competitor comments

KBC is clearly one of the most admired names in Europe in terms of both product manufacturing and distribution. During an interview at the SocGen tower in Paris, Bernard Desforges, the French bank’s head of structuring equity derivatives, named KBC as “big players”, alongside a handful of other European banks such as BBVA and SCH in Spain, plus the Landesbanken and Deka in Germany. Mr Desforges’ predecessor, Eric Le Brusq, who left to head up equity derivative sales at Calyon, was even more vocal and specific in his support. “KBC in Belgium is a leader in structured products. They raised ?11bn in 2004, with ?3 to ?5bn of this equity linked. These people are quite sensitive to innovation. It’s a way for them to maintain a big share of the Belgian market, to promote interesting products related to current market conditions.” The other main players in the Benelux region, including Fortis and Robeco are also very complimentary about the KBC operation, and Mr Stercx is singled out for particular praise for his ‘product factory’ approach.