Croatian Discount Bank

The Croatian Discount Bank was a significant bank headquartered in Zagreb, which was conceived in 1864 and started opetrations on 1868/11/16.[1] It merged in 1928 with the Croatian-Slavonian Land Mortgage Bank (, est. 1892) to form the Yugoslav United Bank (, also Union banka). The latter was rebranded Croatian United Bank under the Independent State of Croatia in 1941. Its liquidation by the Communist authorities was initiated in late 1945 and completed in 1949.[2]

History

At its creation in 1868, the Croatian Discount Bank was the second large modern bank founded in what is now Croatia, following the establishment of the First Croatian Savings Bank in 1846. The Discount Bank had mostly local shareholders and was thus viewed as more straightforwardly aligned with Croatian interests than the First Croatian Savings Bank at that time. Guido Pongratz was instrumental in the creation of the new bank, which was later chaired by the brothers Petar Dragan Turković and Milan Turković. By 1924, it had branches in Dubrovnik, Križevci, Osijek, Petrinja, Sušak, and Vinkovci.[3]

The Croatian-Slavonian Land Mortgage Bank was founded in Zagreb in 1892 with participation from the Hungarian Mortgage Credit Bank, the Hungarian Discount and Exchange Bank, and Vienna's Unionbank. It was granted a monopoly over mortgage operations and, by an act of the Croatian Parliament in 1894, the management of funds of all autonomous administrative bodies, which gave it a significant competitive advantage. In the 1920s, it was recapitalized by new domestic and foreign investors including Belgium's Solvay Group, the Berlin-based Disconto-Gesellschaft, Vienna-based Ephrussi and Company

See also

• First Croatian Savings Bank
• City Savings Bank of Zagreb
• List of banks in Croatia
• List of banks in Yugoslavia