Banque d'Outremer

Former head office of the Banque d'Outremer, rue de Namur 48 in Brussels

The Banque d'Outremer (lit.'Bank of Overseas'), initially known as the Compagnie Internationale pour le Commerce et l'Industrie (CICI, lit.'International Company for Trade and Industry') was a Belgian financial institution, established in 1899 in the context of the exploitation of the Congo Free State, and eventually merged into the Société Générale de Belgique in 1928.

Despite being named as a bank, the Banque d'Outremer acted mostly as an investment company that invested into projects in Congo but also Canada, China, the Dutch East Indies, and Russia.[1] For a decade from 1900 onwards, its activities in China were mainly channelled through an affiliate, the Compagnie Internationale d'Orient (lit.'International Company of the East'),[1]: II  which it eventually absorbed in 1910.

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