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46-496: Bank Austria was formed in 1991 by the merger of the troubled Länderbank and Vienna's Zentralsparkasse , in practice a takeover of the former by the latter led by its general director René Alfons Haiden  [ de ] ; the merged entity became Austria's largest bank. In 1996, the Austrian government announced the privatization of Creditanstalt-Bankverein , in which it held a majority stake. In January 1997, Bank Austria acquired

92-698: A Russian brokerage. Moreover, Kazakh bank ATFBank was acquired in 2007. Since 31 March 2008, the bank has been operating under the brand name "Bank Austria" and has a new logo to show the connection to the UniCredit Group. It had the strongest capital base among the large banks in Austria, its Core Tier 1 ratio amounted to 10.55% and its Total Capital ratio to 12.7% as of 31 December 2011. In 2016, UniCredit took back from Bank Austria direct ownership of its affiliates in Central and Eastern Europe. Also as of 2016, Bank Austria

138-492: A brief period of prosperity after 1924, the savings banks again experienced stress around the banking crisis of 1931 , but had been managed cautiously enough that, unlike most commercial banks, they withstood the dislocation following the crash of Creditanstalt ; despite massive deposit withdrawals, no single savings bank failed or even suspended payments for a single day. At the end of 1937, there were 197 savings banks in Austria; almost half of their aggregate deposits were held in

184-647: A consolidating entity. The latter feature stands in contrast to Germany , where the Sparkassen are supervised individually as separate entities even though they are joined in an institutional protection scheme . Another difference is that the German Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe has no significant foreign operations, whereas Erste Group Bank AG has significant subsidiaries in Central and Eastern Europe . The first Austrian savings bank, as its name indicates,

230-470: A customer share in Austria around 31.2% as of December 2022. The group has a complex decentralized structure but relies critically on Erste Group Bank AG , which owns the main local savings bank in Vienna , operates central functions, owns and manages subsidiaries outside of Austria, and consolidates group accounts. The Österreichischer Sparkassenverband acts as the group's national representative body. In 2020

276-875: A full affiliate, the shrinking of BA-CA per se to a smaller market, and the shrinking of HVB to the German market. In order to respect cartel restriction in Croatia , BA-CA's affiliate Splitska banka was sold to Société Générale , for UniCredit already owned Zagrebačka banka . BA-CA acquired Koç Finansal Hizmetler (Turkey), Zagrebačka banka (Croatia), Bulbank (Bulgaria), Živnostenska banka (Czechia), UniBanka (Slovakia) and UniCredit Romania from UniCredit in that operation. In 2006 BA-CA continued its expansion in Russia by acquiring remaining shares in International Moscow Bank and 100% of institutional business of Aton Capital -

322-497: A joint-stock company owned by an entity called Anteilsverwaltung Zentralsparkasse (AVZ). By then, it had 120 branches in Vienna and 98 in the rest of Austria, the largest branch network of all Austrian credit institutions. On 26 September 1991 it closed a merger with the struggling state-owned Länderbank , forming what was initially called Z-Ländebank Bank Austria AG on 5 October, with retroactive effect from 1 January 1991. AVZ became

368-846: A main shareholder of Bank Austria, and was converted into a foundation in 2001. In 1994, Bank Austria's headquarters were relocated to a building at Lassallestrasse 5 in the Nordbahnhof neighborhood of Vienna, and the bank eventually left its former building on Vordere Zollamtsstraße in 2008. This bank and insurance -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Erste %C3%B6sterreichische Spar-Casse The Sparkassengruppe Österreich ( lit.   ' Austrian Savings Bank Group ' ) brings together all savings banks ( German : Sparkassen ) in Austria . Tracing its origins to 1819, it serves around 4 million customers in 797 branches with more than 15,500 employees, with

414-459: A mortgage bank established in 1941. Outside of Vienna, the 46 local savings banks extant as of early 2024 are, by chronological order of creation (of the oldest entity in cases of subsequent mergers): Die Zweite Sparkasse (full name Die Zweite Wiener Vereins-Sparcasse ) is a Vereinssparkasse created in 2006 by the ERSTE Foundation in Vienna. It relies on volunteer work from employees of

460-462: A purpose-built property at Vordere Zollamtsstraße 13, designed by architect Artur Perotti  [ de ] on the site of the former Bürgertheater which had been demolished in 1960. The building was extensively refurbished in 1988-1992 on a design by architects Günther Domenig and Peter Podsedensek. In 1990, the Zentralsparkasse rebranded as Kommerzialbank Wien and was reorganized as

506-655: A separate entity, Haftungsverbund GmbH. It overlaps, but does not coincide, with the institutional guarantee scheme, which relies on an "ex-ante fund" managed by a jointly owned entity, IPS GesbR. As an exception to the Haftungsverbund , the Allgemeine Sparkasse Oberösterreich in 2009 secured a trilateral cross-guarantee agreement with Erste Group Bank and Erste Bank Österreich. As of August 2022, Haftungsverbund GmbH's shareholders were Erste Bank Österreich (51 percent) and Erste Group Bank AG (1 percent),

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552-436: A significant expansion of their scope of business. Volunteers were replaced on savings bank boards by full-time executives, and most state regulations were phased out. At the same time, the branch network and the associated number of employees kept expanding. In order to offer all financial services, numerous subsidiaries in the insurance, leasing and investment sectors were founded. There were also two major waves of mergers, with

598-433: A significant reduction in savings banks from 162 in 1979 to 75 in 1995. Waves of mergers reduced the total number of savings banks to 128 in 1983, and 74 in 1994. The Austrian savings banks sector underwent major structural change in the 1990s. Following new legislation in 1986, many savings banks transferred their operations to joint-stock subsidiaries, which allowed the latter to raise external equity capital. In 1990–1991,

644-574: The Girozentrale der Ostmärkische Sparkassen was established as a centralizing organization for the German savings banks along similar lines to the German Girozentralen that had been created in the previous four decades. After the currency stabilization in 1952, the savings bank system underwent its most successful phase to date, with extremely high growth rates, although there were also strong government restrictions to combat inflation until

690-626: The Austrian Financial Market Authority as a mandatory deposit guarantee scheme in line with Austrian and EU legislation. Under Austrian law, the Sparkassengruppe deposit guarantee scheme may be called to intervene if the other two schemes, the uniform Einlagesicherung Austria (ESA) and that of the Raiffeisen Banking Group , are depleted; conversely, the two other schemes may protect savings banks' depositors if

736-498: The ERSTE Foundation was created and became Erste Bank's parent entity. Meanwhile, the group expanded to 12 Eastern and Southeastern European countries. Erste Group Bank was founded in 2008 to serve as holding company, fully owning Erste Bank in Austria (now known as Erste Bank Österreich  [ de ] ) and also owning the group's foreign operations. As of the end of 2022, the ERSTE Foundation controlled 24.2 percent of

782-456: The 1850s. Like with other similar entities, the city of Vienna was not formally the bank's owner but assumed liability for all its savings deposits and controlled its governance. The new institution immediately became a major competitor to the Erste österreichische Spar-Casse which had been the dominant savings bank in Vienna since 1819. One of the main drivers for its creation had been the expansion of

828-601: The 1970s. In 1957, the Girozentrale was restructured from its Anschluss-era legal form under public law to a joint-stock corporation, the Girozentrale der Österreichische Sparkassen AG , subsequently renamed Girozentrale und Bank der österreichische Sparkassen AG in 1965. In 1979, through the Banking Act and the Savings Banks Act, the savings banks were placed on an equal footing with other credit institutions, which meant

874-621: The City of Vienna ' ) was a major bank in Austria. It was founded in 1905 and eventually merged in 1991 with the Austrian Länderbank to form Bank Austria , itself later integrated into UniCredit . On 20 October 1905, the Vienna City Council under Christian Social Mayor Karl Lueger made the decision to establish the Zentralsparkasse, following the development of municipal savings banks ( German : Gemeindesparkassen ) in Austria since

920-486: The Sparkassengruppe scheme becomes depleted. The Austrian state may intervene if all three schemes are depleted. Because of the scheme's mandatory character and public guarantees, S-Haftungs GmbH has been classified as part of the Austrian government sector by Eurostat for national accounts purposes, despite misgivings from Sparkassengruppe representatives. The joint liability scheme ( German : Haftungsverbund , also referred to as "cross-guarantee scheme") relies on

966-602: The aegis of City Councillor for Finance Hugo Breitner  [ de ] . Despite the politicization, it was very well managed and by late 1937 had become larger than the Erste Spar-Casse by total assets. Following the Nazi Anschluss of 1938, the Zentralsparkasse kept expanding by taking over the local savings banks of Mödling , Liesing (savings bank est. 1897), Purkersdorf , and Klosterneuburg , after these localities had been incorporated into Greater Vienna in

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1012-401: The capital of Erste Group Bank, whose equity is publicly listed and otherwise largely dispersed. The savings banks that form the Sparkassengruppe Österreich are Vienna-based Erste Bank Österreich (an AG since 1993 ), 46 local savings banks outside of Vienna, Die Zweite Sparkasse , as well as Bausparkasse der österreichischen Sparkassen AG  [ de ] (also known as sBausparkasse),

1058-522: The country's largest savings bank, Vienna's Zentralsparkasse , acquired the state-controlled Länderbank and renamed itself Bank Austria . Also in 1991, the Girozentrale purchased a retail bank, the Österreichisches Credit-Institut  [ de ] , and renamed itself the GiroCredit Bank der Sparkassen in 1992. In 1994, Bank Austria took over control of GiroCredit, but in 1997 it absorbed Creditanstalt-Bankverein and moved decisively away from

1104-486: The fall of 1938. After World War II , the Zentralsparkasse branded itself as "Z" and once again became the house bank of the social democratic municipal administration of Vienna. It played a significant role in the reconstruction of Vienna and from the 1960s onwards in the significant improvement in the living standards of broad sections of the population. Thanks to its scale, it often recorded higher profitability than commercial banks. In 1965, it relocated its head office to

1150-496: The first one of which was born in 1853. A boom in new savings banks began in 1866, with the number increasing from 26 to 210 in 1910. The model statute of 1872 abolished the previous restriction of savings banks services to "less well-off classes" and the degressive interest rate (the interest rate fell with the level of deposits); they now became "financial institutions of a humanitarian nature" ( German : Geldanstalten humanitären Charakters ) that could do business with all classes of

1196-405: The first year, 30,000 accounts were opened with deposits of 14.7 million kronen . Like other savings banks the Zentralsparkasse experienced financial dislocation during the hyperinflation following World War I but sunsequently grew by taking over several smaller banks in Vienna. It was the key financier of the investments of the so-called Red Vienna municipal government from 1919 to 1934, under

1242-496: The group had total assets of €277 billion, ahead of Raiffeisen Bank International (€166 billion), UniCredit Bank Austria (€119 billion), and BAWAG Group (€53 billion), making it one of the largest Austrian banking groups. Since the entry into force of European Banking Supervision in late 2014, the entire Sparkassengruppe Österreich has been directly supervised by the European Central Bank , with Erste Group Bank AG as

1288-403: The impoverishment of the population and as instruments for the accumulation of wealth by the working classes. The Savings Bank Regulation ( German : Sparkassen-Regulativ ) of 1844 established a framework of government oversight of the savings banks, with a permissive system for Vereinssparkassen and for the newly defined category of municipal savings banks ( German : Gemeindesparkassen ),

1334-421: The joint-stock savings banks may have multiple shareholders including AVSs and foundations. The local savings bank and Vienna-based Erste Bank Österreich do not compete in retail services within each other's territorial remit, thus operating under a de facto "regional principle" ( German : Regionalprinzip ) similarly to the German Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe , even though an earlier mandatory Regionalprinzip

1380-399: The municipality of Vienna which had absorbed surrounding villages which had their own Gemeindesparkasse , an idea that had been debated since 1885. These included Sechshaus  [ de ] (savings bank est. 1881), Hernals (est. 1890), Währing (est. 1884) and Döbling (est. 1883), all of which were incorporated into Vienna in 1890-1892, as well as Floridsdorf (est. 1881) which

1426-642: The other Sparkassengruppe entities. Erste Bank Österreich is wholly owned by Erste Group Bank , and in turn owns stakes in Salzburger Sparkasse (100 percent, as of end 2022), Tiroler Sparkasse (75 percent), Sparkasse Hainburg-Bruck-Neusiedl (75 percent), Sparkasse Mittersill (40 percent), Steiermärkische Sparkasse (25 percent), Kärntner Sparkasse (25 percent), Allgemeine Sparkasse Oberösterreich in Linz (19 percent), Sparkasse Voitsberg-Köflach (4 percent) as well as sBausparkasse (100 percent). It has no equity stake in

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1472-415: The other local Austrian savings banks. The local savings banks in Austria are governed by private-sector law, unlike most of their German counterparts which are public-law organizations ( Anstalt des öffentlichen Rechts  [ de ] ). Since 1986, they have had the option of transferring their business operations to a subsidiary joint-stock corporation ( German : Aktiengesellschaft , AG), whereas

1518-603: The population. Savings banks were created in other parts of the Habsburg Monarchy , such as the Laibacher Sparkasse in today's Ljubljana (est. 1820), Cassa di Risparmio di Venezia (est. 1822), Cassa di Risparmio di Milano (est. 1823), Böhmische Sparkasse (est. 1823), First National Savings Bank of Pest (est. 1840), and First Croatian Savings Bank in Zagreb (est. 1846). A first central financial institution for

1564-485: The prior entity would retain its savings bank status as a "participation-managing savings bank" ( German : Anteilsverwaltungssparkasse , AVS). From early 1999, AVSs have been allowed to convert into a foundation ( German : Stiftung ). As of early 2024, 33 local savings banks operated as AG, 13 savings banks had retained their prior status (i.e. no joint-stock entity), of which 10 Vereinssparkassen and 3 Gemeindesparkassen . Following mergers and other transactions,

1610-614: The relevant municipalities, which had been established by law in 1929 but was gradually phased out from 2003 onwards at the request of the European Commission . The Vereinssparkassen did not benefit from similar guarantees before the creation of the Haftungsverbund . In accordance with Austrian savings bank legislation, the Sparkassengruppe relies on an in-house auditor, the Sparkassen-Prüfungsverband (also known as

1656-423: The rest being held by local savings banks including those for Styria (12.7 percent), Upper Austria (8 percent), Salzburg (3.2 percent) and Carinthia (2.8 percent). In total, Erste Group controls 64 percent of Haftungsverbund GmbH directly or indirectly, and likewise with Sparkassen-Haftungs GmbH. The Haftungsverbund replaced an earlier regime of guarantee of the municipal savings banks (Gemeindesparkassen) by

1702-464: The savings banks market, selling GiroCredit to the Erste Österreichische Spar-Casse . The latter merged with GiroCredit and took the name Erste Bank der oesterreichischen Sparkassen AG , in short Erste Bank, thenceforth the savings banks' dominant financial institution. In 2001, the savings banks agreed to form a Haftungsverbund or mutual support pact, which was later designated as an institutional protection scheme (IPS) under EU law. In 2003,

1748-524: The savings banks, initially joint with cooperative banks and with main geographical focus on Bohemia , was created in 1897 in Prague , the Deutsche Kreditgenossenschaft für Böhmen . It changed its name in 1901 to Centralbank der deutschen Sparkassen  [ de ] , and relocated to Vienna in 1916. It was liquidated in 1926. The Austrian hyperinflation following World War I destroyed

1794-784: The stake for about 1.25 billion euros. In turn, Bank Austria sold a majority stake it held in GiroCredit for 8.24 billion schillings (about 600 million euros) to Erste Bank . In February 1998, the state sold its last shares and the remaining shares on the market were exchanged with shares in Bank Austria, and Creditanstalt was delisted from the Vienna Stock Exchange . In stages from 2000 to 2002, HVB Group took over Bank Austria. Subsequently in 2002, Bank Austria's shares were delisted, and Bank Austria and Creditanstalt merged to form Bank Austria-Creditanstalt. An assets exchange procedure led to

1840-459: The transfert of HVB's assets in central and eastern Europe to Bank Austria, and reversely. The new BA-CA's shares were offered to the public through an IPO in 2003. In June 2005 Italian group UniCredit announced the acquisition of HypoVereinsbank, along with BA-CA. Restructuring led to the creation of a new holding for BA-CA foreign assets in eastern Europe, the transformation of the Polish activity to

1886-483: The two main Vienna savings banks, Zentralsparkasse (the Viennese Gemeindesparkassen , with 588 million schillings in total assets) and Erste Bank (the original Vereinssparkassen , with 416 million). Between 1938 and 1945 under Anschluss , the Austrian savings banks adopted some features of the German system including the creation of the Girozentrale der ostmärkischen Sparkassen . In 1939,

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1932-430: The value of both the assets and liabilities of the savings banks, whose aggregate deposits shrunk from 2 billion kronen (4.3 billion schillings ) in 1913 to 3 million schillings in 1923. The disruption could only be overcome because the legislature allowed the savings banks to carry out new tasks, especially current account business and cashless payment transactions as well as foreign exchange and currency trading. After

1978-462: Was abolished by the 1979 savings bank legislation. The Zweite Sparkasse has operations in all of Austria except Vorarlberg, however. The Sparkassen-Haftungs GmbH (or S-Haftungs GmbH) operates the deposit guarantee scheme of the Sparkassengruppe, which is separate from the other Austrian deposit insurance systems. It was established in 1988 as a corporate entity, and was recognized in January 2019 by

2024-490: Was incorporated into Vienna in 1904-1905. After the creation of the Zentralsparkasse, these local savings banks continued to operate under the name Wiener Kommunalsparkasse in their respective districts, before fully merging into the Zentralsparkasse in 1923. The Zentralsparkasse began operations on 2 January 1907 in the Old City Hall of Vienna , then permanently set up in a neighboring building at Wipplingerstrasse 4. In

2070-569: Was managed by CEO Robert Zadrazil. The 2000s saw the bank in the middle of substantial litigation around trustee Rudolfine Steindling 's transfer of former East German, now German, money to her own accounts. In 2010 a Swiss court ruled that the predecessor Länderbank had broken the law by aiding her to channel away the money and had to pay €240 million but a higher court overruled this decision on formal grounds. Zentralsparkasse The Zentralsparkasse , full name Zentralsparkasse der Gemeinde Wien ( lit.   ' Central Savings Bank of

2116-402: Was the Erste österreichische Spar-Casse , which opened on 4 October 1819 in Vienna . Other savings banks were founded in subsequent years on an associative basis ( German : Vereinssparkassen ) by individuals such as aristocrats, clergy, senior civil servants, or doctors and pharmacists. As a counterweight to private banks, the savings banks were intended as purpose-driven institutions against

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