European Guide on
Banking and Reverse Mortgage Loans
About Guide Guide Summery Order Guide
. . .
E A B H strong lender of reverse mortgage loans. G U G international reverse equity loans. SEBH reverse mortgage loans all across Europe.
EABH GUG SEBH

History of the company/bank and archive description for Czech Commercial Bank / Zivnostenská banka
History of the
company/bank:		 Czech Commercial Bank / Zivnostenská banka in Prague (1868 - 1950) :

The Czech Commercial Bank / Zivnostenská banka was the most famous bank of the former Czechoslovak Republic. It was established in 1868 by Czech business circles, which created it as headquarters for city loan companies operating as financial institutions for the needs of small and medium tradesmen from mostly Czech language environment. These institutions deposited their surpluses with Zivnostenská banka and by the end of the 1920s were virtually its major shareholders. Zivnostenská banka gradually became the strongest Czech commercial bank and during the existence of Austro-Hungarian monarchy was one of the most important promoters of the economic emancipation of the Czech nation.
Its great expansion started after the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic. In the period between two world wars it affected the national economic policy. It participated in the preparations of the currency separation from Austria in 1919. It implemented the domestication and repatriation of capital and the largest Czechoslovak industrial enterprises which had their headquarters in Vienna and Budapest after the war and whose major shareholders were Austrian or Hungarian subjects, particularly large banks. As a leading Czechoslovak bank it financed and guaranteed state financial needs. The world financial experts of that time rightly considered it one of the most stable central European commercial banks in 1919 - 1938. Zivnostenská banka had built during that period a concern of about 200 industrial and business companies, was a shareholder in them, extended credits for them and was influencing their business strategy. During the German occupation, its position substantially deteriorated. A German supervisor was installed in its administration and the occupational authorities did not allow the bank to exert its influence on the territory of the Böhmen and Mähren Protectorate in leading industrial enterprises, particularly those which were associated with war production. Nevertheless, even in 1939 - 1945 it was allowed to provide credits to its former clientele. Until the end of the occupation its remained a Czech national bank because its shareholdings were spread among the Czech lower and middle classes. Zivnostenská banka had virtually no large shareholders, which prevented the German capital from a radical entry into its property.
In October 1945 Zivnostenská banka was nationalised. Its main objective was to finance large nationalised Czechoslovak industrial enterprises (with more than 100 employees). However, it also credited numerous private enterprises. In April 1950, within the concentration and centralisation of the banking system (effected by the then regime), its operation was terminated. Its rights and obligations were taken over by the State Bank of Czechoslovakia which became the central bank of issue and the only credit centre for the needs of industry, trade and agriculture.
Archive description The files of Zivnostenská banka in Prague are deposited in the Czech National Bank archive, which also administers the files of 34 commercial joint-stock banks and private banks operating in the territory of the Czechoslovak Republic before 1950. The size of these files is 1,002 shelf metres. The most ancient archival materials originated in 1859, the most recent about 1950.
Most documents are preserved, but some losses have been registered. General correspondence of the period 1869 - 1918 is only fragmentary. In the 1920s and 1930s, Zivnostenská banka effected a large-scale destruction of this kind of documents. Only fractional documentation exists also of the so-called industrial section from the years 1908 - 1918, an important section which dealt with the administration of the industrial concern of Zivnostenská banka. The records also include an extensive personal correspondence of the most famous Czechoslovak banking manager dr. Jaroslav Preiss, who headed the bank in 1917 - 1938. Part of this correspondence is deposited in the register of the CR Justice Ministry and the archive of the CR Interior Ministry. Negotiations are held about returning these files.
The protocols of the board of directors, executive committee, management, supervisory boards and general meetings are preserved in full. Relatively well-preserved is the documentation of the syndicate, banking concern, industrial, credit and legal sections from the period of 1919 - 1950. The series of balance books from 1869 - 1950 is complete.
Various inventories, indices, personal, regional and subject registers serve for the orientation in the files. Some subject catalogues have been compiled (e.g. on Zivnostenská banka´s foreign activities in 1870 - 1938). The files are used for research on the economic developments in our territory in 1870 - 1918. The materials deposited are also a supporting source for studying the history of industrial branches and individual industrial and business companies. Part of the documentation is used for studying the political, social and cultural developments in the lands of Bohemia and the Czechoslovak Republic in 1869 - 1950.
The documentation of Zivnostenská banka currently serves as a basis for completing the privatisation process in the CR and for substantiating the claims to restitution of property confiscated from numerous legal entities and individuals in the period of totalitarian regimes.
Publications
  • Horák , J. : Zivnostenská Banka in Prague, 1869 - 1918. Praha 1919.
  • Horejsek , J. : Capital Expansion of Zivnostenská Banka into South East Europe in 1907 - 1918 , in: The Collection of Historical Works of the Philosophical Faculty of the Palacký University in Olomouc , 6 (1971) , p. 85 - 102.
  • Horejsek , J. : The Unsuccessful Transaction by Zivnostenská Banka in Poland , in: The Slavic Survey 57 (1971) , p. 139 - 145.
  • Horejsek , J. : Zivnostenská banka and Ljubljana Credit Bank. The contribution to the History of Czechoslovak - Yugoslav Financial Relationships , in: The Czechoslovak Historical Journal XX (1972) , p. 803 - 818.
  • Lacina , V. : Zivnobanka and its Concern in the Years of Great Economic Crisis (1929 - 1934) , in: The Czechoslovak Historical Journal XXXI (1983) , p. 350 - 377.
  • Lacina , V. : Zivnobanka priot to and during World War I (1908 - 1918) , in: The Czech Historical Journal 88 (1990) , p. 276 - 303.
  • Lacina , V. : The Role of Zivnostenská Banka in the Czechoslovak Banking System after the Establishment of the 2nd Republic , in: The Czech Historical Journal 90 (1992) , p. 43 - 63.
  • Novotný , J. : The Attempts by Foreign Capital to Enter Zivnostenská Banka in the CSR prior to Munich , in: The Silesian Collection 81 (1983) , p. 31 - 44.
  • Novotný , J. / Sousa , J. : Zivnostenská Banka in the Czech Business in 1868 - 1950. 1993 (Manuscript) , 43 p.
Conditions of use The archival files of Zivnostenská banka are professionally processed and available for operating and study purposes.

home search the database contact