The history of Polish banking until 1914 in an outline
The beginnings of Polish banking go back to the middle of the XIV century. In those times credit operations were connected with trade. The factor having influence on the principles of providing credit was the ban on collection of interest. At the end of the XVII century and beginning of the XVIII century a serious role was played by cahal banks maintained by the Jewish communes in larger cities.
Several bank houses were established in Warsaw in the second half of the XVIII century. During the banking crisis in 1793 they fell, which was connected with the partitions of the state. During the autonomous period of the Polish Kingdom (1815–1830) from the initiative of the government there were established the Land Credit Society (1825), the state Bank of Poland (1828) and a number of private bank houses. Their high income came mostly from the lease of treasure monopolies, indirect taxes, state enterprises, etc. From 1870 in all of the Polish provinces there began to arise private banks in the
form of joint stock companies. Besides them public credit institutions were operating. In 1883 in Galicia-enjoying autonomy-the Domestic Bank was established, which became a central credit institution in the Austrian sector. In the Prussian sector an essential role was played by the cooperative funds (according to F. H. Schultz’s system), whose centre was the Bank of the Union of Earning Companies established in 1886. In Galicia credit cooperatives developed at the beginning of the XX century according to F. W. Raiffeisen’s system. They adopted the name of Stefczyk’s funds from the name of the founder. On the eve of World War I on the Polish territory there operated 28 large private stock banks with an own capital of about 300 million francs in gold, that is, 58 million US dollars of that time. In the Polish Kingdom the Commercial Bank in Warsaw Ltd. had the greatest significance with an own capital of 84.5 million francs, in the Prussian sector-the Bank of the Union of Earning Companies with a capital of 8.8 million francs and in Galicia-the Domestic Bank with a capital of 21 million francs.
