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12:45 p.m. to 3 p.m.
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Gemerská úverná banka, Rimavská Sobota
Gemerská úverná banka (Gemer Credit Bank) was established in 1920 by the renaming of Gemerská sporiteľňa a úverná banka (Gemer Savings and Credit Bank) originally founded in 1897. It initially recorded share capital of 500,000 Austro-Hungarian crowns (K), which was raised to 2 million Czechoslovak crowns (Kč) in 1922. The share capital increase was intended to support the bank’s recovery from having its assets trapped in Budapest in the break-up of Austria-Hungary. It had invested a significant amount in war loans, which it managed to have recognised as claims against the Czechoslovak Republic with help from the banking industry organisation Jednota peňažných ústavov na Slovensku a Podkarpatskej Rusi (Association of Credit Institutions in Slovakia and Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia) in Bratislava. Moravská agrárna a priemyselná banka, Brno, (Morava Agrarian and Industrial Bank) contributed to the bank’s recovery by investing in the share capital of Gemerská úverná banka and providing a large rediscounting loan. Gemerská úverná banka thus became an affiliated institution of Moravská agrárna a priemyselná banka.
Gemerská úverná banka then became intensely involved in the consolidation of the Slovak banking sector, gradually acquiring Hajnáčska sporiteľňa, Putnocká sporiteľňa, Rimavská Seč branch, Hnúštianska úverná banka, Horehronská ľudová banka, Pohorelá Maša, Dobšinský úverný ústav, Veľkorevúcka ľudová banka, Gemerská obchodná a hospodárska banka, and Rimavská banka. The institutions that it took over became its branches. It founded the Gemersko-spišská drevárska spoločnosť (Gemer-Spiš timber company) in Rimavská Sobota.
The post-war economic slump and series of ill-considered takeovers led to a crisis in 1924, in which Moravská agrárna a priemyselná banka in Brno revoked the affiliation agreement. Gemerská úverná banka reported an official loss of Kč 321,000 for 1923. In this critical situation, it turned to Tatra banka in Martin. The general meeting of Gemerská úverná banka approved the two banks’ merger on 31 May 1924. Tatra banka took over all the assets and liabilities of Gemerská úverná banka. However, due to the failure to carry out a full audit of the losses, it needed to have recourse to funds from the Special Fund for Mitigation of Postwar Losses in 1926.
A small number of documents recording the bank’s activities have been preserved, mainly in Hungarian and Slovak, and may be of interest to scholars studying the history of banking in Slovakia, especially as regards the activity of a local credit institution in the ethnically mixed territory of southern Slovakia in the first half of the twentieth century. It may also be of interest with reference to banking between the wars and the penetration of Slovak capital into southern Slovakia.
When the archival documents were taken over by Štátna banka československá (State Bank of Czechoslovakia), they were first held in the corporate archives in Ružomberok, where they were put in order and a temporary inventory was made. They were relocated to the archives of Národná banka Slovenska in Bratislava in 1993. The temporary inventory dating from 1968 was revised in the archives of Národná banka Slovenska in 2016.
Last updated: Monday, November 11, 2024