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 to the public from December 16, 2025 to January 16, 2026.
Tekovskosvätokrižská sporiteľňa, Žiar nad Hronom
Tekovskosvätokrížska sporiteľňa (Tekov-Svätý Kríž Savings Bank) was founded under the Hungarian name Bars-Szent-Kereszti takarékpénztár, r. t. in the town of Svätý Kríž, now known as Žiar nad Hronom, in 1872. It was a joint-stock company with share capital amounting to 22,800 guldens. After the changeover to the Austro-Hungarian crown currency (K) in 1900, this was valued at K 45,600. The same year, the share capital was raised to K 50,000 and in 1911 it was raised again to K 100,000 by means of a transfer from the reserve fund. It was a local Hungarian financial institution whose main activity was taking deposits and providing small mortgage loans and loans secured by promissory notes to farmers, craft workers, timber merchants and tradespeople. According to the balance sheet for 1913, in that year the bank provided loans secured by promissory notes, mortgage loans and account overdraft loans amounting to more than K 1.1 million, managed deposits of K 1.2 million, and made a net profit of K 14,918.
As a rule, between 1895 and 1913, it paid dividends at rates between 8.5% and 15%. The chairman of the supervisory board in 1913 was Alexander Finka, the accountant was Augustín Pock and the treasurer was Ernest Anderle.
During the war years between 1914 and 1918, a surplus of liquid funds and the inflation of the Austro-Hungarian crown led to an increase in deposits on savings books, which reached K 2.26 million at the end of 1918. The war also suppressed lending and the bank’s total stock of loans secured by promissory notes, mortgage loans and overdraft loans shrank to K 871,000. It deposited a portion of its funds amounting to more than K 500,000 in banks in Budapest. It owned securities with a nominal value of K 1 million and for its own account it subscribed a total of almost K 300,000 to war loans.
The savings bank was adversely impacted by the break-up of Austria-Hungary and the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic because its funds were tied up in Budapest. 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 association Jednota peňažných ústavov na Slovensku a Podkarpatskej Rusi (Association of Financial Institutions in Slovakia and Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia) in Bratislava, but it suffered a significant exchange rate loss in the process. On 24 April 1921, following a decision of the general meeting, the bank accepted an offer to merge from Národná banka (National Bank) in Banská Bystrica and became its branch in Svätý Kríž.
Archival documents on activities of the bank were deposited in the corporate archives of Štátna banka československá (State Bank of Czechoslovakia) in Marianka in 1956, where a part of the fonds was processed and a register was made. In 1978, the fonds was relocated to the archives of Štátna banka československá at 27 Krajná Street in Bratislava. It was relocated again to the Národná banka Slovenska archives building at 8 Cukrová Street in Bratislava in 2003. The main surviving documentation on the activities of Tekovskosvätokrížska sporiteľňa are the annual reports from the period 1881–1920, which are written in Hungarian and Slovak.
Processing of the archival fonds was completed in 2019. Although only a fragment of the bank’s archival documents have survived, the fonds can be used in research on the history of banking in Slovakia in the first half of the 20th century focusing on the activity of local financial institutions under Hungarian management and the consolidation of the financial sector in Slovakia after 1918.
Last updated: Tuesday, December 30, 2025