НАЦИОНАЛИЗАЦИЈА НАРОДНЕ БАНКЕ КРАЉЕВИНЕ ЈУГОСЛАВИЈЕ
The Nationalization of the National Bank of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia

Summary/Abstract: The National Bank of Yugoslavia was the legal successor to the Privileged National Bank of the Kingdom of Serbia (as a corporation) – although al ready at the founding of the new state one wondered if one should turn the Serbian emission-bank into the Yugoslav one, or if one should liquidate it fi rst and set up a new central fi nancial institution afterwards. From the very beginning the National Bank was criticized for its unprincipled monetary policy, selective credit policy, for keeping the interest rates unchanged under rather changeable circumstances on the market, for allowing „over-indebtedness“ – fi rst of the State itself, and then of other economic players, as well as for having in mind primarily interests of its stock holders. These accusations were directly connected with ethnic and ownership make-up of the stocks of the Bank, which were over 90% in „Serbian hands“. Under conditions of the incipient federalization of the country (after the Cvetković–Maček agreement) and the war in Europe in late summer 1940, the issue of its survival as a corporation was raised. The initiative to nationalize the central fi nancial institution originated with Croat economists (R. Bićanić, J. Šutej, A. Malbaša, A Košutić etc.). However, the nationalization didn’t bring about the desired results – quite the contrary. Although it was considered „only the fi rst step in the process of reorganization of the whole economic system“ it made possible the more uncontrolled indebtedness of the state apparatus and the emergence of hyper-infl ation.

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