Banskoštiavnický obchodný a úverový ústav, Banská Štiavnica

The founding general meeting of Banskoštiavnický obchodný a úverový ústav (Trade and Credit Institution of Banská Štiavnica) was held on 14 April 1889. The bank’s equity capital amounted to 50 thousand guldens. Its shareholders were wholesalers, manufacturers and members of the local intelligentsia. In the year of its establishment, the company held deposits of 52,000 guldens and provided loans of 137,400 guldens. In five years, the amount of deposited funds and granted loans totalled 333,500 and 466,900 guldens respectively. From 1909, the share capital of the bank was 150,000 Austro-Hungarian crowns (K), while its turnover, deposits and loans continued to grow until 1915. In the following years, up until the post-war stabilisation, the bank’s financial situation gradually deteriorated. In 1914 the bank granted war loans of K 114,000, which amounted to 20% of deposited cash. The writing-off of war-loan losses lasted until 1922.

In 1921, the bank’s turnover was 24.4 million Czechoslovak crowns (Kč) and deposits reached Kč 823,000. A year later, the turnover was Kč 21.2 million, deposits increased to Kč 955.7 thousand and loans amounted to Kč 916 thousand. In 1923 the bank held deposits of Kč 1.4 million and provided loans of Kč 1.3 million.

In 1921 the Czechoslovak Ministry of Finance granted the bank a privileged position in the settlement of war loans, and in 1922 the bank became a privileged institution for the conversion of Hungarian war loans into Czechoslovak state loans.

On 15 April 1924, the meeting of the bank’s board of directors decided on a merger with Tekovská ľudová banka, despite initial resistance from the bank’s management. The merger was approved on 8 May 1924 as a reaction to imminent new banking laws, which were not to be supportive of small banks.

Preserved documents of Banskoštiavnický obchodný a úverový ústav were archived in the corporate archives of Štátna banka československá in Ružomberok. There, their first temporary inventory was made in 1968. The inventory was revised and supplemented in 2015, its introduction includes information from the Compass financial yearbooks and descriptions of financial institutions in the archive fonds of Štátna banka československá.

In 1995, the archive fonds of Banskoštiavnický obchodný a úverový ústav was transferred to the NBS Archives. The fonds comprises mainly minutes of the bank’s management meetings, annual reports and accounting books.