Girozentrale

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Girozentralen are credit institutions in Germany that act as regional central institutions of the savings bank organization.

General

Historically, the term Girozentrale stems from the originally sole character of these credit institutions as clearing houses in the cashless payment transactions of the savings banks . The word is composed of "Giro" ( Italian circle, circuit ) and headquarters for a higher-level institution with bundling tasks. The word Giroververkehr used to stand for cashless payment transactions, which today are carried out by means of transfer , real-time transfer , check , direct debit , direct debit or bill of exchange . The affiliated savings banks had to manage these cashless payment transactions via the responsible giro center, provided that the debtor and recipient did not have their current accounts with the same savings bank. In that case, cashless payment transactions could only work nationwide if the institutes involved had clearing accounts for each other. With the large number of local savings banks and other credit institutions, it was not possible to manage clearing accounts bilaterally . This resulted in the requirement of a central clearing house.

Even if the terms Landesbank and Girozentrale are sometimes used synonymously, their operational banking tasks must be strictly separated. The term “Girozentrale” in Section 3 (1) of the Association's Articles of Association has a functional component that goes beyond the term “Landesbank”, because it specifically describes the Landesbanks in their function as central banks for savings banks. It follows that the Landesbanken can only be a member of the Savings Banks and Giro Association for as long as they actually perform the task of a savings bank central bank.

Legal form and sponsorship

The unified banking institutions with Landesbank and giro central tasks are organized as institutions under public law and are subject to the state supervision of the respective federal state . The respective finance minister is a natural member of the supervisory board of the Landesbank / Girozentrale ( supervisory board / administrative board ). The German Girozentrale in turn maintain a leading institute, DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale , based in Frankfurt a. M. This institute emerged from the merger of Deutsche Girozentrale - Deutsche Kommunalbank (DGZ) and DekaBank on January 1, 1999.

history

German municipal bond for 5,000 marks dated December 31, 1922, issued by the German Central Giro Association and the German Giro Central.

The Provincial Aid Funds, of which the Provincial Aid Fund Westphalia in Münster, founded on January 1st, 1832, are the forerunners of the Girozentralen . At an extraordinary meeting of the German Savings Banks Association on October 22, 1892, the establishment of a central savings bank was discussed for the first time from the point of view of securing liquidity in the event of a crisis. The economic crisis of 1907 gave an impetus to the introduction of cashless payment transactions in order to make the money supply of the economy more independent of cash . The importance of the payment transaction function for Landesbanken has increased since 1910 , as they became the central clearing house for the acceleration of cashless payments. Since February 1911, the Stadtsparkasse Köln took over the function of the Girozentrale in the Rhine Province. On June 20, 1914, the Rheinisch-Westfälische Sparkassentag in Cologne decided to use the Landesbank der Rheinprovinz instead of the Stadtsparkasse Köln as a giro center. Johann Christian Eberle , Mayor of the city of Nossen , recognized the advantages of a savings bank's own closed payment network and proposed the establishment of giro centers as the central clearing house in each country. At Eberle's initiative, the Giroverband Sächsischer Kommunen with 151 members was founded on October 5, 1908 ; the actual giro traffic began on January 2, 1909 with the first German giro center, which started giro traffic for 143 giro registers in Dresden. As a result, other giro associations were founded, and on October 26, 1916, 12 giro associations merged to form the "German Central Giro Association". From 1923 onwards the merger of Landesbanken operating in the same region with pure giro centers began, which led to the creation of the "community banks". Since then, the Landesbank function has been combined with that of the Girozentrale in one bank.

The German currency and banking system was hit hard by the German banking crisis from 1931. The largest of the Landesbanken, the Landesbank der Rheinprovinz, was on the verge of collapse. The latter had refinanced long-term municipal loans through short-term investments by the savings banks and in July 1931 had got into a liquidity crisis. She had to stop her payments on August 7, 1931. Both the Landesbank and the central giro function were affected. In August 1931, a branch of the Deutsche Girozentrale in Cologne took over the coordination of the savings bank giro traffic.

tasks

As the central banks of the affiliated savings banks, the giro centers are responsible for carrying out supra-regional payment transactions, managing excess liquidity of the savings banks, granting joint loans with savings banks to their borrowers and supporting the savings banks in securities , custody , foreign trade and foreign exchange business . Even the current quantitative and qualitative capacity of most savings banks, which has increased through mergers , is too small to handle these banking transactions autonomously for their savings bank customers. You therefore use the giro center responsible for you, which has the personnel and technical know-how as well as the technical requirements for these types of business . The giro centers work in the background without the savings bank customer knowing about their activities. As a rule, the functional area of ​​a Girozentrale is identical to the regional district of the responsible savings bank and giro association.

Girozentralen have largely lost the function of a central clearing house in cashless payment transactions for savings banks since European payment transaction systems such as TARGET2 (November 2007) and SEPA (January 2008) envisaged centralization via the Deutsche Bundesbank .

Giro headquarters in Germany

International

In Austria the Erste Bank of the Austrian Sparkassen AG takes over the functions of a giro center. Internationally, there is a Girozentrale task only where there are also savings banks. In France, the 17 Caisse d'Epargne have been cooperative credit institutions since January 2000 and have been consolidated in the Banques Populaires Caisse d'Epargne ( BPCE ) since July 2009 . The BPCE also takes on the giro central function. For the Spanish “Cajas de ahorro”, Cecabank takes on the task of a giro center. The 39 Italian savings banks (“Cassa di Risparmio”) are legally and statistically not managed as an independent group of credit institutions; its central institute is the Associazione fra le Casse di Risparmio Italiane (ACRI).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Adalbert Dick, The entanglement between savings banks and Girozentralen , 1959, p. 11
  2. ↑ Dirk Schmidt, Sparkassenwissen für Verwaltungsrat , 2002, p. 331 f.
  3. ^ Christian Thiemann, legal problems with the Sparkasse brand , 2008, p. 222
  4. ^ Hans Pohl, Economy, Enterprises, Credit System, Social Problems , Volume 1, 2005, p. 979
  5. ^ Hans Pohl, Economy, Enterprises, Credit System, Social Problems , Volume 1, 2005, p. 979
  6. ↑ Hans Pohl, Economy, Business, Credit System, Social Problems , Volume 1, 2005, p. 972
  7. ↑ Hans Pohl, Die Rheinischen Sparkassen , 2001, p. 112
  8. ↑ Adalbert Dick, The entanglement between savings banks and Girozentralen , 1959, p. 19
  9. ^ Hans Pohl, Economy, Enterprises, Credit System, Social Problems , Volume 1, p. 980
  10. ↑ Melchior Palyi / Paul Quittner, Handwortbuch des Bankingwesens , 1933, p. 723 ff.
  11. ↑ Michael North, A Little Story of Money , 2009, p. 199
  12. ↑ Hans Pohl, Die Rheinischen Sparkassen , 2001, p. 137
  13. ↑ Hans Pohl, Die Rheinischen Sparkassen , 2001, p. 154
  14. ^ Adalbert Dick, The entanglement between savings banks and Girozentralen , 1959, p. 112