KBC group has taken cognisance of the complaint filed by the South African NGOs Open Secrets and the Centre for Applied Legal Studies with the OECD... 

In the complaint both NGOs refer to the alleged support to the apartheid regime and the purported involvement in setting up controversial financial structures to fund illegal arms trade with that regime in the period between 1977-1994. The alleged support would have been given by the Luxembourg bank KBL and its sister company, the former Kredietbank at the time. 

Both Kredietbank and KBL were subsidiaries of the same holding company Almanij. Kredietbank has never been a mother company of KBL, as is erroneously mentioned in the complaint...

KBC group notes the complaint of both NGOs and will submit the complaint and the attached documents to a thorough examination, insofar as still possible... 

KBL has no longer formed part of KBC group since 2011. KBC group no longer has access to any documents or archives of KBL and therefore cannot comment on its behalf...

KBC group's extremely comprehensive and openly communicated sustainability framework forms the touchstone for its policies. It has implemented groupwide policies and procedures to guarantee sustainable, ethical, responsible behaviour. KBC group has signed the UN Global Compact and fully respects the founding principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It shuns financial activities involving the most controversial of regimes... 

However, should the allegations that KBL or Kredietbank provided support or were allegedly involved in this matter in the past prove to be true, it would be deeply regretted by KBC today...