Hospodárska banka, Brezová pod Bradlom

Hospodárska banka (Farm Bank) in Brezová pod Bradlom was founded in 1910 with share capital of 50,000 Austro-Hungarian crowns (K), which was raised to K 100,000 in 1917. The first board of directors consisted of Štefan Papánek (chairman), Štefan Kováč (vice-chairman), Ján Papánek, Samuel Rechtoris, Samuel Gašparec, Samuel Papánek, Martin Papánek and Juraj Krutý. Ján Lichner, Ján Černý, Ján Cirana, Štefan Gavora and Štefan Krutý were elected to the supervisory board, with Samuel Bzuch and Ján Svátik as alternates. The first managing director of Hospodárska banka was Jozef Hora.

The main activities of the financial institution were to take deposits on savings books and current accounts, to discount and rediscount promissory notes and commercial papers, to conduct banking transactions, to trade in commodities and real estate, to provide loans, mortgage loans and loans against pledges, and to intermediate purchases and sales.

It was a small bank with Slovak management which made a relatively large profit and paid regular dividends, in part thanks to commercial ties with Slovak emigrants in America.

By decision of the general meeting on 27 July 1919, Hospodárska banka, Brezová pod Bradlom, merged with Hospodárska banka, Trnava, which established a branch in Brezová pod Bradlom.

The bank’s files were moved to the corporate archive of Štátna banka československá in the former monastery at Marianka in a disorganised condition in 1956. A part of the archival fonds was processed there and a temporary inventory was made. In the period 1975 – 1977, it was transferred to the bank’s new special-purpose archives building at 27 Krajná Street and in 2003 it was moved to the archives building of Národná banka Slovenska at 8 Cukrová Street in Bratislava. The fonds inventory was revised in 2021.

Just one linear metre of archival documents about Hospodárska banka, Brezová pod Bradlom, has survived. This includes books of shareholders and account books from 1910 to 1925. The archival fonds is in good condition and may be of use in research on the history of banking in western Slovakia focussing on the activities of a local Slovak financial institution in the first half of the twentieth century which maintained lively business relations with Slovak emigrants in America.