Raiffeisen Zentralbank - History

History

The incorporation meeting of the shareholders of the giro centre of the Austrian Raiffeisen cooperatives was held on 16 August 1927. With this, a central institution was established for the Raiffeisen Banking Group, and since then this institution has functioned as the national and international representative and coordinator for the Group. The founding took place roughly four decades after the establishment of the first Austrian savings and loan cooperative to use the system devised by Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen. The original company name was Girozentrale der österreichischen Genossenschaften. In 1939, after the German annexation of Austria, the new German owners changed the name to Genossenschaftliche Zentralbank der Ostmark Aktiengesellschaft, and then in 1942 to Genossenschaftliche Zentralbank Wien Aktiengesellschaft. From 1953, the new name was Genossenschaftliche Zentralbank Aktiengesellschaft, with the abbreviation GZB also being used for the company. Since 1989, the bank has been named Raiffeisen Zentralbank Österreich Aktiengesellschaft, abbreviated as RZB. Founded primarily as a liquidity equalisation office for the Raiffeisen Banking Group, the company already in its first ten years of operation significantly expanded its business activities to include fields such as foreign exchange and currency transactions, lending, acceptance of deposits and investment in securities. Along with this, the bank’s staff also increased significantly, rising to 85 employees at the end of its first decade of existence. In 1938, one day after the German occupation of Austria, it was taken over by a provisional administrator and subsequently nationalised. The bank was not returned to its pre-war owners until 1955.