KBC Bank N.V. is a Belgian universal multi-channel bank, focusing on private clients and small and medium-sized enterprises. Besides retail banking, insurance and asset management activities (in collaboration with sister companies KBC Insurance NV and KBC Asset Management NV), KBC is active in European debt capital markets, domestic cash equity markets and in the field of corporate banking, leasing, factoring, reinsurance, private equity and project and trade finance in Belgium, Central and Eastern Europe and elsewhere (mainly in Europe). KBC is an initialism for Kredietbank ABB Insurance CERA Bank.

The parent company, KBC Group N.V., is one of the major companies and the second largest bancassurer in Belgium. It is the 18th largest bank in Europe (by market capitalisation) and a major financial player in Central and Eastern Europe, employing some 51,000 staff worldwide (of which 31,000 in Central and Eastern Europe and Russia) and serving 11 million customers worldwide (some 8 million in Central and Eastern Europe).

KBC may refer to:

A bank is a financial institution and a financial intermediary that accepts deposits and channels those deposits into lending activities, either directly or through capital markets. A bank connects customers that have capital deficits to customers with capital surpluses.^{[citation needed]}

Due to their critical status within the financial system and the economy^{[citation needed]} generally, banks are highly regulated in most countries. Most banks operate under a system known as fractional reserve banking where they hold only a small reserve of the funds deposited and lend out the rest for profit. They are generally subject to minimum capital requirements which are based on an international set of capital standards, known as the Basel Accords.

The oldest bank still in existence is Monte dei Paschi di Siena, headquartered in Siena, Italy, which has been operating continuously since 1472.

Banking in the modern sense of the word can be traced to medieval and early Renaissance Italy, to the rich cities in the north like Florence, Venice and Genoa. The Bardi and Peruzzi families dominated banking in 14th century Florence, establishing branches in many other parts of Europe. Perhaps the most famous Italian bank was the Medici bank, set up by Giovanni Medici in 1397. The earliest known state deposit bank, Banco di San Giorgio (Bank of St. George), was founded in 1407 at Genoa, Italy.