Századok – 1999

Tanulmányok - Tomka Béla: A magyar bankrendszer fejlődésének sajátosságai nemzetközi összehasonlításban 1880–1931 IV/655

A MAGYAR BANKRENDSZER FEJLŐDÉSE ... 1880-1931 683 business policy of banks before the First World War. The Hungarian banking system at that time was characterized by a peculiar universality. On the one hand, it can be taken as even more universal than the German and Austrian one, since the specialization of financial institutions was of a low degree and there was only a slight legal-structural difference between them. The dividing lines between the savings and the joint-stock banks came to be blurred very early, because the former ones took over the profit-oriented joint-stock-company form, and they were setting out to work as deposit banks. The differences between them in the proportions of certain business branches can be taken as a function of business opportunities. The boundary between the individual types of credit institutions was also fading as a consequence of the fact that several Hungarian banks and savings banks inserted the activities of the mortgage-loan banks in their business activities that were traditionally separated in an independent mortgage branch from the banking activities in Germany and Austria. However, the Hungarian banking system can only be considered as universal in a rather formal sense: legally, and concerning the degree of specialization of banks. If the investment banking activity accompanying the deposit businesses is taken as the major critérium of universality, then the Hungarian financial system is to be seen considerably less universal. Both the the analysis of balance-sheet items and other features of business policy signify that the investment activities of the Hungarian banks especially in the industrial sector - were growing in the period preceding the First World War, but were of substantially less significance than in the case of the German or Austrian banks. In the years before the First World War — though the comparison is impeded by several circumstances — as compared to other European economies the comparative financial ratio was high in Hungary, and the index of the bank density can also be considered high. It is also a peculiar feature that in this period the Hungarian banking system was not characterized by concentration as it could be seen in Germany and Austria. Of the factors affecting the formation of the Hungarian banking system, one of the most common rationale the level of the capital supply does not explain the peculiarities satisfactorily. The role of the state, an other rationale found in the research of Central European banking, does not seem determinative either. Consequently, the peculiarities of the Hungarian banking system are to be assigned to other, so far less explored, factors as well (foreign demonstration effects, cultural factors etc.). In many respects the post-First World War development of Hungarian banking also deviated from the international trends further on. Although there were new bank-types that came forward, but it remained typical of the Hungarian banking system further on that the specialization of institutions was of a low degree. Besides, the number of institutions remained great, and the concentration process slow. The various forms of state interference came forward relatively early. It can at the same time be seen peculiar that the credit institutions were relatively stable, the bank crisis in Hungary was not so deep as in Germany and Austria.