The group wants to do away with the confusion with the listed holding company Dexia, which in recent weeks had had a particularly bad press.
Also Dexia Bank Belgium (DBB) is in reality not the owner of the Dexia brand which is in the hands of Dexia Credit Local (DCL) in France. Restoring confidence in the brand through clear and transparent communication appears to be the main challenge. The decision follows consultations with customers, staff and brand management experts.
In the first week of October, the bank lost four billion euros in deposits. This “run on the bank” was stopped when it was placed in the hands of the federal government, but the challenge is now to encourage larger inflows of savings deposits.
Dexia Bank Belgium is also harking back to its social origins and stresses that it wants to create added value for society. In the past the bank as Credit Communale was been a key player providing loans to local communes and to the public sector and that role will continue to play in the future.
The parent company of the Franco-Belgian bank Dexia Group is exposed to €512 billion of sovereign debt, mainly from Greece and other problematic countries. The bank is expected to be split into three parts, one of which will centralise the French activities and will be merged with other nationalized French banks. A second arm will be the Belgian part of the bank that will be nationalised by the Belgian government and receive a significant capital injection, while a third arm will be “the bad part of the bank” with all Dexia’s “toxic assets.”
