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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.
Spišská banka, Kežmarok
This financial institution was registered in the Companies Register in Levoča on 1 May 1863 under the German name Kesmarker Sparkasse, Aktiengesellschaft, Kesmark (mit Pfandleihanstalt) (Kežmarok Savings Bank, joint-stock company, Kežmarok (with pawnbroker’s). It had already been doing business discretely since 1860. The share capital was set at 40,000 Austro-Hungarian guldens. At the time of its establishment, it was controlled by a 24-member administrative board. By 1886 it had only five members, and their activity was overseen by a 3-member supervisory board. Anybody was allowed to be a shareholder without restrictions as to religion, sex or age. Shareholders had voting rights from the age of 20.
Many entrepreneurs, company owners, lawyers and members of the nobility in and around Kežmarok had links to the bank. The most prominent name in the bank’s history is businessman Theodor Genersich, who was a member of the administrative board from 1876 to 1926 and its chairman for 45 years. He ensured that the bank recovered from a fraud scandal in 1877. The annual reports were full of good news about annual growth in the balance sheet, net profits, numbers of depositors and the volume of deposits. The truthfulness of such reports between 1863 and 1876 was called into question by a scandalous revelation in 1877. The administrative board discovered that the chief accountant had used counterfeit bills to embezzle 128,000 guldens, around three times the share capital. The culprit committed suicide when he was exposed.
The administrative board proposed recovery measures that were approved by the general meeting. The share capital was raised to 120,000 guldens and a guarantee fund was established. The bank withheld dividend payments for 10 years. In 1886 another dubious claim for 50,000 guldens came to light. It was deducted from the share capital. In 1883 Kežmarská sporiteľňa joined Spišská sporiteľňa (Spiš Savings Bank), Levoča, and Sporiteľňa piatich hornouhorských miest (Savings Bank of Five Upper-Hungarian Towns), Spišská Sobota, in a consortium to buy and restore a bankrupt mill at Betlanovce in the Hornád Valley. After the mill was purchased at auction, it was initially a profitable investment but around the turn of the century it began to make losses and the bank was glad that it managed to sell it in 1905 for more than its net book value.
Since 1872 there had also been another bank in Kežmarok called Kežmarská banka (Kežmarok Bank), joint-stock company. Several members of its corporate bodies were also members of the bodies of Kežmarská sporiteľňa. Kežmarská banka owned shares in several local firms. During the First World War it suffered severe losses and it therefore entered liquidation in 1917. It was taken over by Kežmarská sporiteľňa.
After the break-up of Austro-Hungary, the bank suffered severe losses from writing off war loans. After the promulgation of the Savings Bank Act (Act No. 302/1920 of 14 April 1920), the bank’s 58th general meeting approved changing its name to Spišská banka, účastinná spoločnosť (Spiš Bank, joint-stock company), Kežmarok. In the same year, the bank raised its share capital to 5.1 million Czechoslovak crowns (Kč). It acquired control of several financial institutions in liquidation (due to large losses they suffered during the First World War) to create a network of branches and sub-branches covering the whole Spiš region and a part of the neighbouring Gemer region. In 1920 it merged with Podolínska sporiteľňa, účastinná spoločnosť, Podolínec, and by 1925 it had branches in Poprad, Veľká, Spišská Sobota, Spišská Belá, Gelnica, Levoča, Telgart, Nálepkovo (then Vondrišel), Spišská Nová Ves, Rožňava and Plešivec. The last two became foreign branches when their territory was awarded to Hungary at the Vienna Arbitration (1938). It also invested in the purchase of shares in the railway from Kežmarok to Poprad
(Kežmarsko-popradská vicinálna dráha) and in a brewery and malthouse in Poprad (Prvý spišský parný pivovar a sladovňa).
(Kežmarsko-popradská vicinálna dráha) and in a brewery and malthouse in Poprad (Prvý spišský parný pivovar a sladovňa).
The general meeting on the business year 1939 took place only on 10 March 1941. The last item on the agenda was a resolution on a merger with the German-controlled Nemecká (Bratislavská) obchodná a úverná banka (German (Bratislava) Commerce and Credit Bank), Bratislava, which had been ordered by Decree No. 11912/40-II/16 of the Ministry of Finance of 7 August 1940.
This was one of the concessions that the Slovak party made to two banks from the German Reich, Dresdner Bank and Deutsche Bank, in return for them releasing their two-thirds capital interest in the Legiobanka group in Slovakia.
This was one of the concessions that the Slovak party made to two banks from the German Reich, Dresdner Bank and Deutsche Bank, in return for them releasing their two-thirds capital interest in the Legiobanka group in Slovakia.
Spišská banka was a bank that primarily served the German community in the Spiš region. It experienced its strongest growth in the second half of the 1920s. After the Second World War, it ceased all activity and the Red Army claimed it as a trophy bank and confiscated its assets. After long negotiations, the bank was removed from the list of spoils of war.
The Executive Authority for Finance appointed a liquidator for it and in 1947 it was put under the administration of Ústredná likvidačná kancelária (Central Liquidation Office). The liquidation process culminated in 1951 when the whole agenda was transferred to the Regional Institute for Slovakia of Štátna banka československá in Bratislava.
The bank’s documents were placed in the archives of Štátna banka československá in Poprad until 1962 when they were transferred to Štátna banka československá’s corporate archives in Košice by order of the regional branch. In 1995 the documents were transferred to the Archives of Národná banka Slovenska at 27 Krajná Street in Bratislava and in 2003 they were relocated to the Národná banka Slovenska archives building at 8 Cukrová Street in Bratislava.
The archival fonds contains documents on activities in the bank’s headquarters and in its branches in Gelnica, Levoča, Poprad, Rožňava and Spišská Nová Ves. It consists mainly of minutes of general meetings, annual reports and balance sheets, audit reports and accounting ledgers. An inventory of a part of the fonds was prepared in 1963 and this was revised and supplemented in 2015.
Last updated: Tuesday, January 31, 2023