Background The
Rothschild family was involved early on in financing operations in Hungary, including by providing a sixth of the equity capital for the construction of the iconic
Széchenyi Chain Bridge and refinancing its cost overruns in the 1840s. In 1857, the Rothschild-sponsored
Creditanstalt bank opened a branch in
Pest.
Austro-Hungarian era , designed by
Alfréd Hajós The Hungarian General Credit Bank had its shares first traded on the
Vienna Stock Exchange on , ahead of its formal registration by the Hungarian Commercial and Exchange Court of Pest on . In 1871, it took over the local branch of Creditanstalt. In 1873, it received a mandate from the recently created finance ministry for a range of transactions, which made it effectively the main banker of the Hungarian government; that role was reinforced and extend by successive acts in 1886, 1901, and 1915. In the 1890s, under
Zsigmond Kornfeld's leadership, the Creditbank became increasingly autonomous from the Austrian Creditanstalt. By the early 20th century, the Creditbank had acquired a dominant position on the Hungarian banking market. It acquired the First Hungarian Industrial Bank (), which had been established in 1864. In 1912 during the
Balkan Wars, it created an affiliate in
Zagreb, the
Croatian General Credit Bank (), of which it retained overwhelming majority control until 1945. By 1913, it ranked fourth among Hungary's commercial banks by total assets, behind the
Hungarian Commercial Bank of Pest, the
First National Savings Bank of Pest, and the
Hungarian Mortgage Credit Bank, but second by profits behind the Hungarian Commercial Bank of Pest.
Interwar period Following the turmoil of
World War I, the Creditbank was able to retain its leading role within the national banking sector. Its links with the Creditanstalt were loosened, and in the early 1920s a 18-percent equity stake was acquired by
Union Européenne Industrielle et Financière, an affiliate of the French
Schneider-Creusot group in partnership with the
Banque de l'Union Parisienne and Belgium's
Empain group. By 1924 its Croatian affiliate, the Croatian General Credit Bank, had branches in
Čakovec,
Karlovac, and
Varaždin. It remained among the country's leading banks throughout the interwar period.
World War II and aftermath In September 1941,
Dresdner Bank appropriated the Schneider-owned block of shares, which from 1945 fell into the
Soviet occupation zone of Germany and were thus claimed by the Soviet authorities under the terms of the
Potsdam Conference. In 1946, the General Credit Bank merged with the Hungarian National Central Savings Bank (, MOKT). The new group did not survive for long, however; it came under direct management by the State Banks' Executive Committee in January 1948, and disappeared by the mid-1950s. ==Leadership==