Lower Austrian Escompte Society

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The Lower Austrian Escompte Society was a major bank of the Austrian Danube Monarchy .

The institute , which was founded in the form of a stock corporation in 1853, two years before Creditanstalt , was set up on the model of the Belgian Comptoir d'Escompte and the Berlin Disconto-Gesellschaft . The paid-in capital was 5 million Austrian guilders . Shareholders had a maximum credit line of 2% of the paid-in capital, initially participation in the company was tied to a place of residence in Lower Austria (then including Vienna ).

The institute had a pioneering role in Austrian mobile banking , but was mainly devoted to bill of exchange and current account credit . It was limited to a "relatively narrow and exclusive clientele" at the turn of the century, but was still one of the seven largest Viennese banks around 1910 and was the sole owner of the Böhmische Escompte-Bank und Creditanstalt (Bebca), one of the three largest German- bohemian commercial banks. It was thus a leader in the Prague Iron Industry Society . At that time, the head of the institute (as Vice President) was Max Feilchenfeld , a close confidante of the industrialist Karl Wittgenstein .

In the last few years of the Danube Monarchy, the Lower Austrian Escompte-Gesellschaft was involved in the transformation of partnerships into joint stock companies, for example in the case of Hutter & Schrantz and Béla Egger . After the end of the First World War and the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy , the institute had to give up its dominant influence on the Bebca. As a result of the banking crisis of the 1930s, the mobile banking activities of the Lower Austrian Escompte-Gesellschaft were finally merged with the newly restructured Creditanstalt in 1934 . What remained was a pure industrial holding.

At the end of the 19th century, the Escompte company had its headquarters on Kärntner Strasse. The institute's headquarters ( Am Hof No. 2), built on the site of the former Imperial War Council building between 1913 and 1915, continued to serve as a bank building until after the turn of the millennium, and for several decades it served as the headquarters of the Austrian Länderbank . After the sale by Bank Austria in 2008, the bank building was converted into a hotel , which opened in 2014.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Eduard March 1913-23, p. 232
  2. ↑ cf. ibid p. 248

literature

  • Günther Chaloupek , Peter Eigner , Michael Wagner: Vienna - Economic History 1740–1938. Vienna 1991, especially Volume 2, p. 962ff.
  • Ferdinand Seibt (ed.): The chance of understanding intentions and approaches to supranational cooperation in the Bohemian countries 1848-1918. Conference report Munich 1987.
  • Eduard März : Austrian industrial and banking policy in the time of Franz Joseph I - using the example of the kk privileged Austrian Credit Institution for trade and commerce. Vienna 1963.
  • Eduard März: Austrian banking policy in the time of the great turning point 1913–1923. Using the example of the Credit Institute for Commerce and Industry. Vienna 1981.
  • Fritz Weber: Before the big crash - the crisis of the Austrian banking system in the twenties. Habilitation thesis. University of Salzburg 1991.

Web links

Commons : Niederösterreichische Escompte-Gesellschaft  - collection of images, videos and audio files