End of March 1926
Balance of power in the first Bank Board
By law, the Bank Board of the National Bank of Czechoslovakia consisted of the governor and nine or ten other members. Six were elected by the general meeting (one of whom was appointed by the president as deputy governor), three were appointed by the president on the government’s recommendation as representatives of the state, and one could be co-opted by the Bank Board.
The Bank Board was conceived as a body representing the interests of Czechoslovakia’s key economic groups. Although the inaugural general meeting was regarded as a major success for the nation, some shareholder groups were not entirely happy with the composition of the Bank Board.
Within the “main group of shareholders” (the Central Union of Economic Cooperatives, the Association of Czechoslovak Savings Banks, the Union of Credit Unions and the Central Association of Czechoslovak Industrialists), industry representatives were very satisfied, having secured three seats (one representing the German ethnic minority), while savings banks felt disappointed and maybe even aggrieved. Initially, it had been envisaged that people’s banking institutions (savings banks and credit unions of all types) would receive two seats and agriculture one. However, representatives of agriculture (including Raiffeisen-type credit unions, known as kampeličky) made a strong showing in the elections, gaining two seats. For the position allocated to banking, the choice lay between Schulze-Delitzsch-type credit unions and savings banks. As the former were far more numerous, savings banks failed to gain the coveted seat on the Bank Board. Securing one seat on the five-member Audit Committee was scant consolation. Ultimately, the general meeting thus elected three representatives of industry (one for German shareholders), two for agriculture and one for credit unions.
The last chance for savings banks to gain representation on the Bank Board was to persuade the government to include one of their nominees among its three candidates for presidential appointment. Intense lobbying ultimately paid off, and their representative joined the Bank Board. Public banks providing long-term credit (such as Zemská banka and Hypoteční banka) and workers’ cooperative organisations affiliated with the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Workers’ Party, grouped around the Wholesale Society of Consumer Cooperatives and the Union of Czechoslovak Cooperatives, also secured one appointed member each.
The final, tenth member – or eleventh including the governor – was a representative of Slovakia, co-opted at the second meeting of the Bank Board on 24 April 1926.