Karin Van Hoecke Email Address

KBC Bank NV is part of KBC Bank and Insurance Holding Company NV, a banking and insurance group resulting from the merger between the former Kredietbank, CERA Bank and various insurance companies (ABB, Fidelitas, Delphi, Omniver, AVM). All banking activities are grouped in KBC Bank NV, and represent the third largest player in the Belgian market. Currently the group has operations in several countries in addition to Belgium including France, Ireland, Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic and employs around 24,000 people. Apart from the Brussels headquarters, the professional and international banking department has various branches in Europe (France, Netherlands, Germany, UK, Ireland), the Far East (Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia, China and India) and USA. Several of these branches have dealing activities (12 dealing rooms) and the group also has affiliates specializing in equity business (KBC Securities, KBC Derivatives, KBC Financial Products).

With 23 years of experience in various domains within an integrated bank-insurance group, I gained valuable knowledge, a large network and a passion for banking. In the past I have served in the commercial network, realising good customer experiences every day. As head of the Antwerp trade finance department, I learned to build a strong team to realise every day the crystal clear commitments towards SME’s, midcap and trading companies. Within the group strategy advisors team, I closely cooperated with top management. I gained insight in how to perform a strategic analysis of business parts, next to insight in the steering mechanism of a bank-insurance group. I understood that also the presentation of conclusions in an appealing format is part of the success story. I brought a vision how KBC can interact with their clients in a more digital world and which tools, structure and change we need to be also the reference in being a hybrid, client-centric bank and insurance.