Ohain, Belgium

The Royal Brussels Cricket Club is a cricket ground in Waterloo, Belgium, home to the Royal Brussels Cricket Club. In February 2019, it was announced that the venue would host three Twenty20 International (T20I) matches in May 2019, between Belgium and Germany.

Lasne (French pronunciation: [lan] (listen); Walloon: Lane) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Walloon Brabant, Belgium, south east of Brussels. In 2008, Lasne had a population of 14,043. The total area is 47.22 km² which gives a population density of 297 inhabitants per km². Lasne is the richest municipality in Wallonia, measured by the average taxable income of the inhabitants. It also has the lowest local taxes of any municipality in Belgium. The municipality consists of the following districts: Couture-Saint-Germain, Lasne-Chapelle-Saint-Lambert, Maransart, Ohain, and Plancenoit (including the hamlet of Marache). While the municipality has taken the name of Lasne, the administrative offices are in the village of Ohain. Ohain contains an example of a Brabant-Wallon village green: almost triangular in shape and sloping gently. The green contains many mature trees and is bordered on 2 sides by old houses and shops. The church in Ohain was built around the year 1200 and the strongly built square tower dates from this time. The village of Couture-Saint-Germain contains the ruins of the Cistercian Abbey of Aywiers which has been the subject of pilgrimages since the late 19th century in honour of Saint Lutgarde who lived there for 30 years in the first half of the 13th century. Much of the Battle of Waterloo was fought in the village of Plancenoit, notably around the church and the fortified farm of La Papelotte. The cemetery wall is said to still contain holes made by musket balls. It was in Plancenoit that Blücher's troops engaged Napoleon's army, having marched from Wavre. Blücher and Wellington met after the battle at the farm 'La Belle Alliance' - now a bar. The current historic area commemorating the battle is jointly administered by the municipalities of Lasne, Waterloo and Braine-l'Alleud.

Marache, or historically Smohain, is hamlet of Wallonia in the municipalities of Lasne, district of Plancenoit, and Waterloo, in the province of Walloon Brabant, Belgium. It is located in a defile through which runs the Smohain, a stream that rises just to the west of the hamlet.Smohain, along with the two farms of Papelotte and La Haye (which are located on the northern bank closer to the head of the same valley about 600 metres (660 yd) and 430 metres (470 yd) west of the centre of the hamlet) and the now ruined Château Fichermont (on a premonitory 350 metres (380 yd) south of the hamlet) formed the eastern bulwark of the Duke of Wellington's Anglo-allied line during the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815.This was a strong defensive position as: all these roads cut so deeply into the sandy clay hillside as a present extreme problems for cavalry or infantry in formation trying to cross them. The small stream running through marshland, the sunken roads and the defile itself were considerable military obstacles, particularly in view of the wet condition of the countryside on 18 June 1815. Later in the battle it was the location where the Prussian right-hand flank joined forces with the Anglo-allies left-hand flank.

Châteaux Frischermont or Fichermont in the Belgian municipality of Lasne is now a ruin (destroyed by fire in and demolished in 1965). At the start of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 it was garrisoned by Dutch soldiers on the easternmost flank of Wellington's defensive line. In 1705 the Châteaux was for a time the headquarters of the Duke of Marlborough. While at Frischermont Marlborough wrote that the escarpment of Mont-Saint-Jean would be a good place to defend Brussels if it was attacked from the south.At the start of the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815 it belonged to Monsieur Beaulieu, and it was garrisoned by troops of the 28th Regiment, Orange-Nassau (Regiment Oranje-Nassau No. 28) under the command of Prince Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar. It was here at 10:30 that as a French patrol drove back Dutch pickets the first fighting of the day took place.

Couture-Saint-Germain (Walloon: Coûteure-Sint-Djermwin) is a village of Wallonia and a district of the municipality of Lasne, located in the province of Walloon Brabant, Belgium. The village was formed long ago. The Cistercian Abbey of Aywiers was established here in the early 13th century. Saint Lutgardis of Aywiers lived in the Abbey.

Solvay Castle (French: Château Solvay, also called Château de La Hulpe), is a château located in Wallonia in the municipality of La Hulpe, Walloon Brabant, Belgium. Completed for the Marquis Maximilien de Béthune as an imposing manor house on the outskirts of Brussels in the 1840s, the castle stands on a hill overlooking a lake set in a park with mature trees covering more than 220 hectares. In 1893, the estate was purchased by the rich industrialist Ernest Solvay, who renovated the park and extensively remodeled the castle from its initial Flemish neo-Renaissance theme to a more elegant look with a French formal garden.The remainder of the farm was designed in a charming English theme, with rhododendrons, azaleas and forest of a number of species, including huge redwoods and oak trees. A broad lake was built with planned alleyways and vantage points providing a views of the forests. The entire property was given to the Regional Government of Wallonia in 1968 on the basis that it should be used for educational purposes. There are three five kilometers of walks on the property. After the donation of the property to the government, the government allowed the Belgian Artist Jean-Michel Folon to open a museum in the park in 2000. After the artist died in 2005 it became The Fondation Folon. Inside the park is a non-profit organization, an equestrian center specialized in the relation between disabled persons and horses. Different events have been organized throughout the year in the park. As an example, in August 2019 the Supertramp musician Roger Hodgson made a concert in the park to celebrate the 40 years of the Supertramp album "Breakfast in America".

La Haye was a farm, in a hamlet of the same name, in the Belgian municipality of Lasne. It was destroyed by fire in 1910. During the Battle of Waterloo (18 June 1815) the farm was one of the fortified garrisoned points that made up a bulwark on the extreme left (eastern end) of the Duke of Wellington's Anglo-allied line.

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift), legally S.W.I.F.T. SC, is a Belgian cooperative society providing services related to the execution of financial transactions and payments between certain banks worldwide. Its principal function is to serve as the main messaging network through which international payments are initiated. It also sells software and services to financial institutions, mostly for use on its proprietary "SWIFTNet", and assigns ISO 9362 Business Identifier Codes (BICs), popularly known as "Swift codes". The Swift messaging network is a component of the global payments system. Swift acts as a carrier of the "messages containing the payment instructions between financial institutions involved in a transaction". However, the organisation does not manage accounts on behalf of individuals or financial institutions, and it does not hold funds from third parties. It also does not perform clearing or settlement functions. After a payment has been initiated, it must be settled through a payment system, such as TARGET2 in Europe. In the context of cross-border transactions, this step often takes place through correspondent banking accounts that financial institutions have with each other.As of 2018, around half of all high-value cross-border payments worldwide used the Swift network, and in 2015, Swift linked more than 11,000 financial institutions in over 200 countries and territories, who were exchanging an average of over 32 million messages per day (compared to an average of 2.4 million daily messages in 1995).Though widely utilised, Swift has been criticised for its inefficiency. In 2018, the London-based Financial Times noted that transfers frequently "pass through multiple banks before reaching their final destination, making them time-consuming, costly and lacking transparency on how much money will arrive at the other end". Swift has since introduced an improved service called "Global Payments Innovation" (GPI), claiming it was adopted by 165 banks and was completing half its payments within 30 minutes. The new standard which included Swift Go was supposed to be utilised in receiving and transferring low-value international payments. One of the significant changes was the transaction amount, which would not differ from start to the end. However, as of 2023, uptake was mixed. For instance, Alisherov Eraj, Alif Bank Treasury Department Swift Transfers & Banking Relationship Expert in the Republic of Tajikistan, describes that the leading cause for the late Swift Go adoption in Tajikistan was the Core Banking System itself. To connect to Swift Go, he adds, banking system interfaces needed to be upgraded and integrate with their software to be fully compatible, this hindered many banks from adopting the technology earlier. As a cooperative society under Belgian law, Swift is owned by its member financial institutions. It is headquartered in La Hulpe, Belgium, near Brussels; its main building was designed by Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura and completed in 1989. The chairman of Swift is Graeme Munro of United Kingdom, and its CEO is Javier Pérez-Tasso of Spain. Swift hosts an annual conference, called Sibos, specifically aimed at the financial services industry.

La Hulpe (French pronunciation: [la ylp] (listen); Dutch: Terhulpen, French pronunciation: [tɛrˈɦʏlpə(n)] (listen); Walloon: L’ Elpe) is a municipality of Wallonia in the Belgian province of Walloon Brabant, 20 km south-east of the centre of Brussels, but only about 3 km from the edge of the Brussels-Capital Region. On January 1, 2007, La Hulpe had a total population of 7,309. The total area is 15.60 km², including 3 km² of the Sonian Forest; this gives a population density of 463 inhabitants per km². La Hulpe still keeps two hamlets, Gaillemarde in the west and Malaise-Bakenbos in the east. The limits of the latter hamlet and of other parts of La Hulpe were modified when the linguistic border (between French and Dutch) was fixed in 1963. The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication's (SWIFT) headquarters are located in La Hulpe.

Papelotte Farm (French: Ferme de la Papelotte) is located at Rue Du Dimont a rural road in the Municipality of Braine-l'Alleud around 15 km (9.3 mi) south of Brussels, Belgium. On June 18, 1815, during the pivotal Battle of Waterloo it served as one of the advanced defensible positions of the Anglo-allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington. Along with the walled farm compounds of Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte, it proved to be instrumental to the delay and the disruption of the opposing Napoleonic army's progress on the battlefield. Napoleon diverted disproportionately large numbers of troops in order to capture or eliminate these perimeters, while he failed to achieve a decisive break through in one of several attacks on the lines of the Allies.Papelotte was situated on the center-left flank of Wellington's army. Napoleon would also lose valuable time and resources as he struggled with the Allied strongpoints, whose comparatively rather moderately sized garrisons defended with remarkable efficiency. Papelotte was manned by two Orange-Nassau regiments of the King's Dutch Brigade, from the Duchy of Nassau. German troops accounted for 45% of the personnel in the multi-ethnic Anglo-allied army. Around 6.15pm a contingent of the French Durutte division managed to enter and briefly occupy Papelotte Farm, as its garrison had run out of ammunition and retreated to a defensive line in the rear. However, the French troops could advance no further. They were tired, decimated, soaked by the previous night’s rain, covered with mud, demoralised by their previous lack of success and by the Prussian arrival and suspicious of their generals... Papelotte provided cover during the approach of Lieutenant-General von Zieten’s Prussian I Corps onto the Waterloo battlefield around 7.00pm. Around 30 minutes later Papelotte and La Haye Sainte were in Prussian hands as Durutte's forces had fully retreated without resistance. Papelotte Farm was damaged and partly burnt down during the battle. From 1857 until far into the 20th century the site was restored, old buildings were replaced and new structures added, including the octagonal tower. Papelotte Farm is the home of the Poney club de la Papelotte.

The European School of Bruxelles-Argenteuil (French: École Européenne de Bruxelles-Argenteuil), also known as the EEBA, is a private, Accredited European School located on the grounds of the Château d'Argenteuil, in Waterloo, 15 km south of Brussels, Belgium. Founded in 2016, the EEBA is a partnership between the Belgian private school "Lycée Molière", and the Scandinavian School of Brussels (SSB). The EEBA, through its partnership with the SSB, offers its students the International Baccalaureate as its secondary leaving qualification, with plans to also offer the European Baccalaureate in the near future. The school caters to nursery, primary and secondary students and is equipped with facilities for boarders aged 15 and up.

Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve (French pronunciation: [ɔtiɲi luvɛ̃ la nœv] (listen); Walloon: Ocgniye-Li Noû Lovén) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the Belgian province of Walloon Brabant. On January 1, 2006, Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve had a total population of 29,521. The total area is 32.96 km² which gives a population density of 896 inhabitants per km². The municipality consists of the following sub-municipalities: Ottignies, Louvain-la-Neuve, Céroux-Mousty, and Limelette. Louvain-la-Neuve (sometimes abbreviated as "LLN") is a new town developed from 1968 in order to provide a home for the University of Louvain (UCLouvain), the French-speaking part of the former Catholic University of Louvain on its separation from the Dutch-speaking part, which remained in the ancient city of Louvain (Leuven).