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.
Helaba, short for Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen, is a commercial bank with core regions in Hesse and Thuringia, Germany offering financial services to companies, banks, institutional investors and the public sector, both within Germany and internationally. At the same time, it is the central clearing institution and service provider for 40 percent of German savings banks. Helaba is an institution incorporated under public law. With approximately 6,300 employees and two headquarters in Frankfurt and Erfurt, the bank maintains branches in Düsseldorf and Kassel as well as offices in Berlin, Stuttgart, Munich and Muenster. On an international level, Helaba acts through branches and representative offices in Paris, London, New York, Madrid, Moscow, Shanghai, and Singapore. Frankfurter Sparkasse, the leading retail bank in the Rhine-Main region, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Helaba. The Helaba Group also comprises the online bank 1822direkt, LBS Hessen-Thüringen and WIBank. The latter implements development programmes of the State of Hesse. Further Helaba subsidiaries are Helaba Invest Kapitalanlagegesellschaft, Frankfurter Bankgesellschaft and the OFB Group.
Retail banking, also known as consumer banking or personal banking, is the provision of services by a bank to the general public, rather than to companies, corporations or other banks, which are often described as wholesale banking.
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.
A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans, mobilising saver surplus to deficit spenders. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets.
The New York State Banking Department was created by the New York Legislature on April 15, 1851, with a chief officer to be known as the Superintendent. The New York State Banking Department was the oldest bank regulatory agency in the United States.
Georg Fahrenschon is a German politician of the Christian Social Union (CSU). From 2008 to 2011, he served as finance minister in the Bavarian State Ministry of Finance. He was a member of the Bundestag of Germany until 2007.
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.
Deutsche Leasing AG (DL) is a manufacturer-independent leasing company in Germany. Since 1987, the company has had its headquarters in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe and is the main leasing partner for the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe. Shares are held by approximately 350 Sparkassen, either directly or indirectly through holding companies. Deutsche Leasing is the sole shareholder of Deutsche Anlagen-Leasing in Wiesbaden.
Sparkasse Leipzig, in full Stadt- und Kreissparkasse Leipzig is a Sparkasse, a public savings bank, based in Leipzig, Saxony. It is one of the largest financial institutions in Germany.
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 Sparda-Banks are eleven German cooperative banks which are consolidated in the Verband der Sparda-Banken e. V.. Traditionally they are specialized in the retail banking business. The eleven, legally independent banks operate according to the regional principle, which means that each bank is responsible for a set business area and accepts customers only from that area.
The Sparkasse Mittelholstein is a German savings bank or Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe that is based in Rendsburg. It is one of five free public savings banks in Germany. The Sparkasse Mittelholstein operates a universal banking business.
The Sparkasse zu Lübeck AG, based in Lübeck, is one of five free public savings banks that still exist in Germany.
The Tiroler Sparkasse Bankaktiengesellschaft Innsbruck is an Austrian savings bank that focuses on private customers, freelancers and small and medium-sized enterprises in the Tyrol region.
The Steiermärkische Bank und Sparkassen is an Austrian sparkassen or savings bank based in Styria. It is a universal bank with services for private clients, small and medium-sized enterprises, private banking clients, large companies, institutional clients and the public sector. It is the largest retail bank in Styria. The expanded home market includes Austria, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia.
The Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe is a network of public banks that together form the largest financial services group in Germany by assets. 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 German public banking sector represents a significant share of the broader banking sector in Germany. Unlike in most other Western and Central European countries, German public-sector banks have been present since the early phases of formalization of banking entities in the early modern period and have never lost their collective significance. They are typically referred to as one of the three “pillars” of the German banking system, the other two pillars being the cooperative banks and commercial banks.
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.
Frankfurter Bankgesellschaft Group is a banking group based in Frankfurt with operations in Germany and Zurich, Switzerland. Originally established in 1969 under the name Bankenunion AG, it is a fully owned subsidiary of Helaba and thus a member of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe for which it serves as the group's main private bank. It includes the former operations of LB Swiss Privatbank, a Swiss private bank founded in 1955, and was the second-largest German-owned private bank in Switzerland as of the early 2020s.
