EABH – European Association for Banking and Financial History

Since 2003 the CNB Archive has been a full member of the European Association for Banking History e.V. (EABH). The Association was founded in November 1990. At first it operated as a supranational scientific centre, its members mostly being specialists and archives of central banks and major commercial banks (e.g. Deutsche Bank, Frankfurt am Main; BNB Paribas, Paris; Société Générale, Paris; ABN AMRO Bank N.V., Amsterdam) from the EU Member States. In 2004, the EABH broadened its scope to include representatives of major financial and insurance institutions from EU countries (e.g. ING Group, Amsterdam, Weiss Re, Zurich; UBS AG, Zurich) and changed its name accordingly (to the European Association for Banking and Financial History e.V.), although the acronym EABH remained intact. At present, almost 80 banking and financial institutions from 28 European countries are members of the EABH. Some international financial institutions, such as the European Central Bank, the Bank for International Settlements and the European Investment Bank, are also involved in the EABH’s activities (www.bankinghistory.de).

 

Researchers in the fields of economics, historiography and archiving from EU Member States and also from non-European countries (the USA and Japan in particular) work closely with the EABH.

In recognition of its contribution to promoting banking history, the EABH was awarded the European Culture Prize in 2001. The EABH is based in Frankfurt am Main. Its current chairman is Hugo Bänziger. The EABH is a methodological centre dealing with the history of individual central banks and the whole European financial sector.

Every year the EABH organises international conferences and workshops with a predetermined agenda, focusing on the development and role of all segments of the banking and insurance sectors on the international scale. In an effort to provide lifelong learning for bank archivists, the Association organises courses on documentation and archive services in the financial sector.

Since 1994, the CNB’s archivists have regularly attended the EABH’s annual conferences and have been actively involved in designated topics. The CNB Archive was tasked, for example, with preparing a comprehensive account of the banking crisis in the Czechoslovak Republic in the early 1920s. Via the EABH Bulletin, the CNB Archive also informs the European research community about literature drawing on archive documents administered by the CNB Archive.

 

List of papers presented or published by CNB archivists at the EABH:

  • Novotný Jiří, Politique déflationisté et instituts d’emission centraux en Tchécoslovaquie, 1999
  • Novotný Jiří, Guide to the Structure of the Archives Network in the Czechoslovak Republic, EABH Bulletin 2001
  • Novotný Jiří – Šouša Jiří, The Crisis and Rescue of the Czech Banking System, EABH Bulletin 2004
  • Kunert Jakub, Butchers’ Bank in Prague (1921–1941), EABH Bulletin 1/2005
  • Kunert Jakub, In-house Journals in Czechoslovakian Banks, 1918–1993, In: Bonin Hubert – Baruh Lorans Tanatar (eds.), Company Journals in Banks and Insurance Companies: History and Recent Developments. Frankfurt am Main 2008, pp. 11–31.
  • Kunert, Jakub: Central Banking in the Czech Lands. In: EABH Bulletin 1/2009. Frankfurt am Main 2009. pp. 72–73
  • Kunert, Jakub: EABH Survey. In: EABH Bulletin 1/2010. Frankfurt am Main 2010. p. 5.
  • Kunert Jakub: State of Archiving and Financial Archives in the Czech Republic. Text for the EABH CCMTF 2010.
  • Kunert Jakub: Records management and archives as a tool of corporate governance. The case of Czech banks 1918–2010, in: Elferink Ingrid – Mooij Joke – Jong, Abe de – Perlinge, Anders, Corporate governance in financial institutions. Historical developments and current problems. Frankfurt am Main 2011, pp. 216–244.
  • Jakub Kunert – Helena Sedláčková, Archival Sources on the History of Bank Employees in the Archive of the Czech National Bank, In: Melanie Aspey – Jakub Kunert – Roger Nougaret (eds.), Archives and the People. Recording Working Life in Financial Institutions, Frankfurt 2014, pp. 81–110.