Decision by the Bank for International Settlements not to pay out a dividend in 2020
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) today announced that it would not be paying out any dividend to its shareholders for the financial year ending 31 March 2020. The National Bank of Belgium holds 50 100 shares in the BIS.
The BIS shares make up part of the National Bank’s statutory portfolio. Any dividend paid by the BIS is therefore included in the (gross) income of this statutory portfolio. This concerns the National Bank’s shareholders insofar as they, in principle, have the right to an annual dividend equivalent to half of the net income of the statutory portfolio. For the National Bank’s reserve and dividend policy, go to: https://www.nbb.be/doc/ts/enterprise/press/2016/cp160323ben.pdf.
For the 2019 financial year, payment by the BIS of a dividend of 245 SDR per share worked out at € 13.20 per NBB share from a total gross dividend of € 122.57.
The National Bank would point out that the revenue from the other components of the statutory portfolio is not yet known and that, consequently, no reliable estimate of the total dividend that will be paid out to the National Bank’s shareholders for the financial year 2020 can be made.