Martin Kollár

(*23 October 1889 in Ovčie – †3 May 1956 in Bratislava)

He started his career in central banking in May 1920 at Bankový úrad ministerstva financií (BÚMF – Banking Institute of the Ministry of Finance, the predecessor of Národná banka Československá (NBČS)) in Prague. At the end of the year he was transferred to the BÚMF branch in Košice. Soon he was appointed controller and in August 1923 he became deputy director of the branch. In March 1927, he was transferred from the post of chief controller in Košice to become director of the Banská Bystrica branch of NBČS. Six years later he left for Bratislava as deputy director. In April 1938 he became the director of this most important branch of the NBČS in Slovakia. He achieved his highest position in the pre-war bank of issue on 1 January 1939, when he was appointed second deputy director of Národná banka Česko-Slovenská (NBČ-S) and a member of its business administration in Prague.

Soon after the declaration of the autonomy of Slovakia, he drafted specific proposal for the decentralisation of NBČ-S. The proposal envisaged the formation of a Slovak division of NBČ-S headed by a deputy governor, with its own Bank Board and Business Administration, and the transformation of the Bratislava branch office into the new division’s Main Institute. At the same time, he also dealt with parity representation of Slovaks in central bodies of the bank and the resulting necessary changes. The organisational structure of the new central bank started to be formed at the end of March 1939 and its final shape was largely the result of his work. In Slovenská národná banka (SNB) he became director of the administrative department and, of course, also a member of the SNB headquarters. In a short time, he built the largest and, from the perspective of the Bank's functioning, the most important department – the administrative department. After the departure of Governor Rudolf Kubiš on medical leave in early February 1945, the Governor entrusted the regular internal agenda of SNB to the Board of Directors under Kollár's leadership. The appointment of the SNB Interim Administration did not affect his position. At that time, he performed one of the Bank's most important functions – the stamping and replacing of currency, which was successfully implemented at the turn of October and November 1945. After the SNB ceased to exist, he remained the director, however, no longer of the Administrative Department, but the Administrative Section of NBČS, Oblastný ústav pre Slovensko (Regional Institute for Slovakia), until 1950.