Frankfurter Volksbank


The Frankfurter Volksbank eG is a Cooperative bank and has its headquarters in Frankfurt am Main. The bank's business area includes the city of Frankfurt and parts of the surrounding area.

History

The history of the Frankfurter Volksbank goes back to the year 1862. On 19 May 1862, the Frankfurter Gewerbekasse was founded by 81 well-known Frankfurt citizens. As early as the end of November 1862, a committee was set up to form a savings and advance bank.
The first CEO was the Frankfurt banker Adolph Reinach. On 1 October 1862, the business was taken up in the house of the cashier, the card deck manufacturer Caspar Ludwig Wüst, in Gallusstr. 15. On 11 November 1862, the senate of the free and imperial city of Frankfurt granted the bank the right as a legal entity.
The bank experienced a quick boom. To this the end of the guild restrictions in Frankfurt in January 1864 contributed which spurred the development of craftsmanship. In the first 5 years from 1862 to 1867 the number of members increased from 81 to 694, the balance sheet total increased from 42,000 to almost 1 million Guilders and 112,000 Guilders of savings had been raised. In addition, the company was profitable and paid a dividend, which increased from 6% to 7%. The company continued to grow in the following years, until it suffered a setback for the first time during the Panic of 1873. So the membership numbers increased from 1525 in 1872 to 2153 in 1875 to fall again in 1881 to 1863.
In 1868, the bank moved from the Hotel du Nord to a new premises at Neue Kornmarkt 18. In 1873 another move to the Große Eschenheimer Gasse took place to the building of Leopold Sonnemanns Frankfurter Zeitung.
In 1878, the house on the corner of Börsenstraße / Freßgass was acquired as the headquarters.
Another factor that increased the attractiveness for members was the amendment of the Prussian Cooperative Law of 1868. While all members so far in solidarity were liable with their own assets, the solidarity liability was repealed on 20 February 1890. In the year 1914 one counted 3190 members and possessed over 3 million Mark worth of business shares. The annual dividends fluctuated between 5 and 8 percent.
The inflation in the early 1920s also hit the Gewerbekasse hard. Although the business achieved to increase the number of members in 1925 to 4203, the value of the shares fell to 187,510 Rentenmark. That the bank survived this difficult time at all was also the result of the work of the chairman of the board, Wilhelm Keller, who ran the bank from 1913 to 1936. With interruption during the world economic crisis, the 20s and 30s were also times of strong growth. In 1930 the balance sheet totaled 10.1 million Mark, in 1942 it was 16.24 million Mark.
In 1942, four cooperative banks in Frankfurt were forcibly merged into Frankfurter Volksbank. In addition to the Frankfurter Gewerbekasse, these were the Frankfurter Genossenschaftsbank, the name giving Frankfurter Volksbank and the Bank für Handel und Gewerbe.
Together, the merged institution now had 4819 members and a balance sheet total of 47 million Marks.
As a result of the currency reform, large parts of the capital were lost again. The Deutsche Mark opening balance of 21 June 1948 showed that a balance sheet total of 76 million Reichsmark became 5 million Deutsche Mark. Of these, 3.6 million compensation claims were against the public sector from the assets side. The bank had 4400 members. With the Wirtschaftswunder, the bank again grew strongly in the following years. In 1961 it had 8082 members and 6.2 million Deutsche Mark equity.
In 1970, other traditional Volksbanks in the Frankfurt area were merged into Frankfurter Volksbank. Those were the Volksbanken from Kronberg, Rödelheim as well as Bockenheim. The latter had already merged with Volksbank Eschborn and Volksbank Niederrad in 1955.
In subsequent years, a series of further mergers with other Volksbanks took place.