Savings Banks (entry)

Categories / Economy/Finances and Credit
SAVINGS BANKS, credit institutions attracting savings and idle funds from the public as their major function. It was on the initiative of Count M. Y. Vielgorsky and I. D. Chertkov that the articles of the first savings bank were worked out. They submitted two projects for establishing a savings fund under the Foster Care Home of St. Petersburg in 1840. A decree was signed on 30 October 1841 to establish a savings bank in Russia. The first savings bank in St. Petersburg was opened under the St. Petersburg Depository Fund at 7 Kazanskaya Square (commemorative plaque) on 1 March 1842. Savings banks were placed under control of the Ministry of Finance in 1860. New savings bank articles were approved in 1862 to change the deposit-taking procedure and kinds of deposits. There were 11 branches of the Savings Bank operating in St. Petersburg by 1882; the first of them opened in 1864 at 17 Kadetskaya Line (today, Siezdovskaya Line). New articles of the savings bank granted the depositors the right to establish deposit terms by 1895. The Board of the State Savings Bank and the General Savings Bank were located at 70-72 Fontanka River Embankment from 1900. The number of branches increased from 21 to 66 between 1895 and 1915. Savings banks actively placed war loans among the general public during World War I of 1914-18. The savings banks were subordinated to the People’s Bank of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1918. After the bank was liquidated in January 1920, their assets and liabilities were transferred to the Central Budget Board of the People’s Commissariat of Finance. The Soviet of People’s Commissars of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic decreed, on 26 December 1922, to establish state labour savings banks to take and issue various deposits such as demand deposits, fixed deposits, sight deposits, etc. The first state labour savings bank in St. Petersburg was opened at 39 Moskovsky Avenue in 1922. State labour savings banks were charged with paying pensions, accepting utility bills, and keeping assets of mutual aid funds from 1925 on. There were 19 branches of the Savings Bank operating in Leningrad by 1928. The Leningrad State Board of State Labour Savings Banks and Credit was situated at 32/30 Griboedov Canal Embankment and 51 Sadovaya Street in the 1920-40s. Based on a State Savings Bank, the Savings Bank of the USSR was established in October 1987; the Bank had some 300 branches by 1990. The Joint-Stock Commercial Savings Bank of the Russian Federation was established in 1991, about 260 branches of the North-Western Bank of the Savings Bank of the Russian Federation (2 Krasnogo Tekstilshchika Street) were operating in St. Petersburg by 2002.

A. L. Dmitriev. Chertkov Ivan Dmitrievich
Vielgorsky Mikhail Yurievich
Fontanka River Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city, house 70
Fontanka River Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city, house 72
Griboedova Canal Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city, house 30/32
Kazanskaya Street/Saint Petersburg, city, house 7
Krasnogo Textilshchika St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 2
Sadovaya St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 51
Siezdovskaya Line of Vasilievsky Island/Saint Petersburg, city, house 17
Boarding House of Education
Ministry of Finance
Ministry of Finance
1841