SRPSKA CENTRALNA PRIVREDNA BANKA D.D. U SARAJEVU
THE SERBIAN CENTRAL COMMERCIAL BANK D.D. IN SARAJEVO

Summary/Abstract: The most significant financial institution in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian Central Commercial Bank, Stock Company in Sarajevo was founded in 1911, at a time when this region was under Austro-Hungarian dominion and fraught with a fierce battle for national identity. The bank was founded, as part of a wider effort toward strengthening Serbian economy in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by an eminent fighter for Serbian national rights, the attorney Dr. Dušan Vasiljević and 116 other businessmen. The purpose in establishing this organization was "to organize and direct Serbian economy and to create such a position for the Serbs in economy as they rightfully deserved but which the Austro-Hungarian authorities wished to prevent them from attaining. This bank was the bastion of all other financial institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina". The existence of this bank guaranteed then and later, in the newly founded Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes/Yugoslavia, the existence of all the other Serbian financial institutions in the region. The basic equity of the bank at the time of founding in 1911 consisted of 3 million crowns divided into 15.000 shares. In the economic boom following World War I the capital grew, going up to 25.000 dinars in 1927, when the Serbian banks in Bosnia and Herzegovina fused and more capital flowed in as a result of investments made by banks in Zagreb and Belgrade. The bank had branch offices throughout the region of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Mostar, Banja Luka, Tuzla, Čapljina, Zvornik, and Derventa. The Serbian Central Commercial Bank was deeply affected by the beginning of the economic crisis in Yugoslavia in 1933, particularly by the act guaranteeing the economic protection of farmers. The bank’s financial reorganization was authorized on the eve of the Second World War.

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