Credit Association of Austrian Workers' Associations

The credit association of Austrian workers' associations was a trade union credit union in Austria between 1912 and 1934. This credit association is regarded as the forerunner of the Bank for Labor and Economy .

This credit association was founded in 1912 by Karl Renner . The aim of the establishment was less to provide the “small” workers with cheap loans, but “to create an auxiliary institute for the organizations and institutes of the working class that saves them the use of capitalist institutions” (quote from Karl Renner). Behind this was the endeavor to free the consumer cooperatives , which had got into a financially precarious position, and the also ailing "Großeinkaufsgesellschaftischer Austrian Consumvereine" (GöC), founded in 1905, from the dependence on bourgeois banks and thus to initiate the financial restructuring of the socialist cooperative system, which was only partially successful .

In 1922, the credit association of the Austrian workers 'associations was reclassified from Karl Renner to the “workers' bank”. The socialist trade unions and the large purchasing company for Austrian consumer associations (GöC) each owned 40% of the shares in “Arbeiterbank AG”. The bank was dissolved after the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria (SDAPÖ) was banned in 1934. It was re-established in 1947 as the Bank for Labor and Economics (BAWAG).