Eugène Prévinaire

Who was Eugène Prévinaire?

Eugène Marie Ignace Prévinaire was a Belgian businessman, liberal politician, civil servant, and former governor of the National Bank of Belgium from 1870 until 1877.

Born in Leuven on 18 October 1805, Prévinaire started his career as a civil servant, but after a few years he established a cotton mill in Huizingen in 1839.

Together with its first governor, François-Philippe de Haussy, he was one of the pioneers in establishing the NBB. Walthère Frère-Orban appointed him as secretary-director of the newly established bank in 1850, of which he became vice-governor in 1864 and governor in 1870.

During his first year as governor of the NBB, the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 broke out. In order to control the financial consequences of the war, Eugène Prévinaire took several measures such as doubling the discount rate and transferring the Belgian gold reserves to the fortified city of Antwerp.

After the war followed several years of economic prosperity, and the term of Eugène Prévinaire as governor of the NBB was extended by thirty years in 1872. On 20 June 1873 the law on cheques was published and banknotes became legal tender. He died in Brussels on 2 June 1877.