The NBS Archives are open to the public at the following times:
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday
9 a.m. to 12 noon /
12:45 p.m. to 3 p.m.
In July, August and September the Archives are closed to the public.
The Archives will be closed on 18 and 25 February 2025.
Mercur, exchange office, Budapest (Bratislava branch)
The Bratislava branch of the Mercur exchange office in Budapest belonged to the credit institution Mercur, valtóüzleti részvénytársaság, established in Budapest in 1896. This credit institution was itself a subsidiary of Bank- und Wechselstuben Aktiengesellschaft in Vienna. Its initial share capital of 200,000 Austro-Hungarian crowns (K) grew to K 10 million over the period to 1914. Between 1903 and 1917, Mercur regularly paid dividends ranging from 4% to 9%.
The main activities of the Bratislava branch were foreign exchange and the provision of loans. Due to the establishment of the first Czechoslovak Republic cutting the branch off from its headquarters in Budapest, where its surpluses were kept, and the adoption of the Nostrification Act (Act No 12/1920), it was forced into liquidation in 1921. The liquidators were Alexander Bauer and Karol Mehl. Liquidation of the institution took at least until 1945, with the most difficult work relating to “hundred-crown” receivables and liabilities for Czechoslovak-Austrian and Czechoslovak-Hungarian clearing.
A small number of documents have been preserved relating to the activities of the exchange office between 1917 and 1942, written in Hungarian, German and Slovak. The main topic is the credit institution’s liquidation. These documents may be relevant to studies of the consolidation and nostrification processes in the Slovak banking sector between the wars. The archival fonds was processed in the archives of Národná banka Slovenska in 2016 and an inventory was made.
Last updated: Monday, November 18, 2024