The European Banking Federation (EBF) is a trade association representing national banking associations in countries of the European Union and the European Free Trade Association. It represents over 3,500 banks and about 2.6 million employees. It was established in 1960 as the Fédération bancaire européenne.
A savings bank is a financial institution that is not run on a profit-maximizing basis, and whose original or primary purpose is collecting deposits on savings accounts that are invested on a low-risk basis and receive interest. Savings banks have mostly existed as a separate category in Europe.
Cooperative banking is retail and commercial banking organized on a cooperative basis. Cooperative banking institutions take deposits and lend money in most parts of the world.
Slovenská sporiteľňa is the largest commercial bank in Slovakia. It provides comprehensive banking services to more than 2 million clients via the largest distribution network with 400 retail outlets. It administers almost 6 million accounts, which proves its stable position in the Slovak banking sector.
Groupe Caisse d'épargne was a group of French savings banks that were converted into cooperative banks by legislation enacted in 1999. Its roots went back to the founding in 1818 of the Caisse d'Épargne et de Prévoyance de Paris, initiated by Benjamin Delessert and the Duke of La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt.
EUFISERV is a European interbank network connecting the ATMs of savings banks in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. It is the largest and the only international credit union-owned interbank network in Europe.
The World Savings and Retail Banking Institute is an international banking association. It has nearly 100 members in 80 countries around the world, representing approximately 6,760 savings and retail banks.
The Association of German Public Banks is a leading association within the German banking sector, bringing together most of the German public banking sector except the local-level savings banks. Its membership includes 63 banks, including the Landesbanks that are also members of the Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband (DSGV) and form part of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, and promotional and development banks owned by the Federal Republic of Germany or the individual German federal states.
girocard is an interbank network and debit card service connecting virtually all automated teller machines (ATMs) and banks. It is based on standards and agreements developed by the German Banking Industry Committee.
The Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband is the association of German savings banks and the apex entity of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, the European Union's second-largest financial services group with 2.4 trillion euros combined assets as of end-2021. Germany's savings banks, owned by local governments, play a major role in the country's economy, together operating some 15,860 branches and employing about 284,800 people.
DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale is the central provider of asset management and capital market solutions of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, a network of public banks that together form the largest financial services group in Germany and in all of Europe. It is registered in both Frankfurt and Berlin, with main operational headquarters in Frankfurt. It traces its origins to the Deutsche Girozentrale, established in 1918 as a hub for payments within the German savings banks system.
The European Services Forum (ESF) is a lobby group of representatives from the European services sector that promote the liberalisation of international trade in services. It was created in April 1999 in order to give recommendations to the European Commission in the GATS negotiations of the World Trade Organization. Since 2012, the Forum is supporting the negotiations concerning the Trade in Services Agreement.
The German Banking Industry Committee (GBIC), known until 2011 as the Central Credit Committee is an industry association of the German banking industry. Its decisions are held normative for the national banking sector – either directly by interbank treaties or indirectly by preparing a corresponding ministerial or Bundesbank decision.
Erste Group Bank AG is an Austrian financial service provider. It is one of the largest financial service providers in Central and Eastern Europe serving more than 16 million clients in over 2,000 branches in seven countries. Erste Group is headquartered in Vienna and operates as a universal bank.
Česká spořitelna is a Czech bank, headquartered in Prague. Despite being organized as a joint-stock bank, it is the heir to a long history of savings banks in the Czech Republic, going back to the establishment of Böhmische Sparkasse in 1825. Since the early 21st century, it has been part of the Vienna-headquartered Erste Group.
The Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe is a network of public banks that together form the largest financial services group in Germany and in all of Europe. Its name refers to local government-controlled savings banks that are known in German as Sparkasse, plural Sparkassen. Its activity is overwhelmingly located in Germany.
The Algemene Spaar- en Lijfrentekas / Caisse générale d'épargne et de retraite was a major Belgian public bank, originally created in 1850 as a pension institution. It was acquired in stages between 1993 and 1998 by Fortis Group. In 1999 Fortis merged it with Générale de Banque and other operations to form Fortis Bank, which in turn was integrated from 2009 into BNP Paribas.
The Sparkassengruppe Österreich brings together all savings banks in Austria. Tracing its origins to 1819, it serves around 4 million customers in 797 branches with more than 15,500 employees, with a customer share in Austria around 31.2% as of December 2022. The group has a complex decentralized structure but relies critically on Erste Group Bank AG, which owns the main local savings bank in Vienna, operates central functions, owns and manages subsidiaries outside of Austria, and consolidates group accounts. The Österreichischer Sparkassenverband acts as the group's national representative body.
The Österreichischer Sparkassenverband (ÖSPV) is the national representative body of the Sparkassengruppe Österreich, acting as a trade association.
