![The "gable cross" (German: Giebelkreuz
), logo of the Raiffeisen banks in Austria, refers to the traditional Pferdekopfe [de] house ornament Raiffeisen Giebelkreuz.jpg](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0e/Raiffeisen_Giebelkreuz.jpg/220px-Raiffeisen_Giebelkreuz.jpg)
The Raiffeisen Banking Group (German : Raiffeisen Bankengruppe, RBG) is a group of cooperative banks in Austria. The Austrian Raiffeisen banks are not consolidated under a single parent entity but are financially linked through a common institutional protection scheme and deposit guarantee scheme. The group's international operations, by contrast, are consolidated under Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI).
The movement to create rural cooperative banks initiated in Germany by Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen spread to the Habsburg Monarchy in 1886, two years before Raiffeisen's death, with the establishment of the country's first Raiffeisenkasse at Mühldorf near Spitz in Lower Austria. The movement first national representative body was founded in 1898 under the name Allgemeiner Verband landwirtschaftlicher Genossenschaften in Österreich (lit. 'General association of agricultural cooperatives in Austria'). As Austria became a separate republic in 1918, more than 2000 local Raiffeisen banks were present on the new country's territory. In 1927, a central financial institution was created the Genossenschaftliche Zentralbank, later renamed Raiffeisen Zentralbank Österreich. In the following decade, the group built up its network of regional banks. Following the Anschluss in 1938, the Austrian Raiffeisen banks were subsumed into the German cooperative financial group. The separate Austrian group was recreated in the postwar era, with the Allgemeiner Verband re-established in 1946 and renamed in 1960 as Österreichischer Raiffeisenverband. [1]
The group's international expansion started in 1986 with the creation of a first banking subsidiary in Hungary. In 1989, the Genossenschaftliche Zentralbank was renamed Raiffeisen Zentralbank (RZB). By 2003, the group had expanded to 15 central and eastern European countries. The international activities were brought together into Raiffeisen International Bank-Holding AG, which went public in 2005 and was merged into the new RBI entity in 2010. In 2017, RBI in turn absorbed its parent company RZB, thus resulting in a more streamlined group structure. [1]
As of end-2021, the group included 342 local cooperative banks (Raiffeisenbank), 8 regional wholesale banks (Raiffeisenlandesbank), and the central entity Raiffeisen Bank International. [2] : 19 All Raiffeisenlandesbanken are owned by their respective member banks; their legal form is a cooperative (German : eingetragene Genossenschaft, eGen), limited-liability cooperative (German : registrierte Genossenschaft mit beschränkter Haftung, regGenmbH), or joint-stock-company (German : Aktiengesellschaft , AG). The Raiffeisenlandesbanken in turn own RBI under a shareholders' agreement. [3] The eight Raiffeisen-Landesbanken as of early 2024 were: [4]
Until 2021, the Raiffeisen Banking Group's institutional protection scheme included seven regional funds (one for each of the federal states of Austria except Carinthia and Salzburg) complemented by a national fund. [5] A mutual support scheme established in 1999, [2] : 19 the Raiffeisen Customer Guarantee Scheme Austria (German : Raiffeisen-Kundengarantiegemeinschaft Österreich, RKÖ) was phased out in 2019. [6] : 19
Until end-2018, the Raiffeisen Banking Group relied on an in-house deposit insurance system, the Österreichische Raiffeisen-Einlagensicherung eGen (ÖRE). As a belated consequence of the EU Deposit Guarantee Scheme Directive of 2014, the Raiffeisen Banking Group decided to join the Austrian national deposit guarantee scheme (German : Einlagesicherung Austria or ESA, also known in Austria as the uniform scheme), starting on 1 January 2019. In 2020, however, the Raiffeisen banks had to contribute to the replenishment of the uniform deposit fund following the near-simultaneous failures of Anglo Austrian AAB Bank and Commerzialbank Mattersburg . [7] A perception that risk-sharing within the uniform scheme was detrimental to the Raiffeisen participants led to the decision in 2021 to form a separate deposit guarantee scheme as allowed by Austrian law, Österreichische Raiffeisen-Sicherungseinrichtung eGen (ÖRS), which became operational in November 2021. At that occasion and as part of an agreement with the Austrian Financial Market Authority and European Banking Supervision, the Raiffeisen Banking Group simultaneously streamlined its institutional protection scheme structure into a single nationwide fund. [8] ÖRS also manages liquid assets for the institutional protection scheme. The previous sub-national funds were accordingly dissolved in June 2021. [2] : 20
Under Austrian law, the Raiffeisen deposit guarantee scheme may be called to intervene if the other two schemes, the uniform ESA and the one of the Sparkassengruppe Österreich, are depleted; conversely, the two other scheme may protect Raiffeisen depositors if the Raiffeisen scheme gets depleted. [5] The Austrian state may intervene if all three schemes are depleted. [9] : 30
The bank is still operating in Russia despite the sanctions imposed by the European Union on the Russian Federation after the Russian attack on Ukraine. [10] In May 2024, the United States Treasury Department warned that Raiffeisen is at risk of having its access to the US financial system curtailed because of its operations in Russia. [11] Raiffeisen subsequently announced that it would suspend all outgoing payments in US dollars from Russia by June 10th that year. [12]
Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen was a German mayor and cooperative pioneer. Several credit union systems and cooperative banks have been named after Raiffeisen, who pioneered rural credit unions.
Raiffeisen Zentralbank Österreich A.G. (RZB) was a significant bank in Austria and the central institution of the Raiffeisen Banking Group (RBG) until its merger into its subsidiary Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) in 2017.
Andrei Andreyevich Kozlov was the first deputy chairman of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation from 1997 to 1999 and again in 2002 to 2006.
In German-speaking jurisdictions, Landesbank, lit. 'bank of the Land', refers to a category of public sector banks that are owned by one or more of the Länder. Institutions of this type exist in most German states, as well as Austria and Switzerland.
The banking system in Austria plays a pivotal role in the country's economy, ensuring financial stability and providing essential services to both individuals and businesses. The Austrian banking system is characterized by a three-tier structure, consisting of joint-stock banks, savings banks (Sparkassen), and cooperative banks.
The WGZ Bank was the umbrella organization of some 230 cooperative financial institutions in the Rhineland and in Westphalia.
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The Raiffeisen Landesbank Südtirol – Cassa Centrale Raiffeisen dell'Alto Adige is the central banking institute of the 39 independent cooperative Casse Rurali/Raiffeisenbank in South Tyrol, Italy.
Banque Raiffeisen is a Luxembourgish banking and financial services company. Founded in 1926, it is one of the oldest banks in Luxembourg. The bank is independent from foreign shareholders. It is a member of the International Raiffeisen Union (IRU), which is an association of cooperatives based on the ideas of Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen.
Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) is a key entity of the decentralized Raiffeisen Banking Group in Austria, acting both as the latter's domestic central financial entity and as the holding company for all the group's operations outside of Austria. The bank is listed on the Wiener Börse. Its major shareholders are the Raiffeisen Banking Group's eight regional banks (Raiffeisen-Landesbanken), which are bound by a shareholders' agreement and together hold a majority of RBI's equity.
Raiffeisenbank or Raiffeisen Bank refers to cooperative banks in Europe that are rooted in the early credit unions of Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen. The name is found in:
Leipnik-Lundenburger Invest Beteiligungs AG (LLI) is a holding company located in Vienna, Austria and primarily owned by Raiffeisen-Holding Niederösterreich-Wien reg.Gen.mbH as well as by Raiffeisen Zentralbank Österreich. Further shareholders are Raiffeisen Versicherungen AG (7.98%), UNIQA Österreich Versicherungen AG (2.02%) and Rübenbauernbund für Niederösterreich und Wien reg.Gen.mbH (6.89%).
Raiffeisen-Landesbank Tirol A.G. is an Austrian grouping of cooperative banks based in Innsbruck, Tyrol. The bank is the central institute of Raiffeisenbank in Tyrol. The bank is a member of Raiffeisen Bankengruppe, which is a member of Österreichischer Raiffeisenverband, and in turn a member of Internationale Raiffeisen-Union.
Landes-Hypothekenbank Steiermark A.G. known as HYPO Steiermark is an Austrian bank based in Graz, Styria. The bank was specialized in mortgage. Nowadays it provides private banking.
Alpen Privatbank is a private bank in western Austria. It operates in Riezlern (headquarter), Innsbruck, Salzburg, Düsseldorf and Stuttgart. Its clients are primarily high net worth individuals from Tyrol, Salzburg, northern Italy, Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg. The customer volumes under management amount to approximately € 2.7 billion.
Raiffeisenlandesbank Oberösterreich AG is a credit institution and grouping of cooperative banks founded in the 1900s and headquartered in Linz, Austria. It is the central institution of the Raiffeisen Banking Group in Upper Austria and the largest of Austria's eight provincial central banks.
Raiffeisenlandesbank Niederösterreich-Wien is a group of organized cooperative banks in Vienna and the state of Lower Austria. It is a part of the nationwide Raiffeisen Bankengruppe grouping of independent cooperative banks, and owns a 22.6% stake in Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI). It has around 957 employees and serves around 266,000 private, business and corporate customers.
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 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.
An institutional protection scheme (IPS) is an arrangement defined under European Union law since 2013 by the Capital Requirements Regulation, involving a form of mutual liability among several banks and financial institutions, under which each participating entity is protected from insolvency by the financial resources of the other participants. Institutional protection schemes have been described as "virtual groups" of banks. They are particularly prominent in Austria and Germany, and also exist in Italy, Poland and Spain.
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