Baština (Jan 2016)
Commercial bank 'Ibar'
Abstract
The lack of capital indispensable for the renewal of the country after WWI, and engagement into the economy, forced businessmen in the Kingdom of SCS/ Yugoslavia to join their modest capitals, and found cash bureau which will credit their shareholders at the first place. The Commercial Bank 'Ibar' was founded in 1921 in Kosovska Mitrovica, and it was one of the three cash bureau which did their business in that city. A great deal of cash bureau for small milieu was the banking characteristics in Eastern part of the state, but Commercial Bank was special since it had been the only bank in the area of Kosovo and Metohija which had Muslims for its shareholders. From paperwork point of view until 1926 the bank operated successfully, but since then it should have dedicated more attention to outstanding claims, and first of all from the members of bank's administration. It cannot be said the indebted shareholders used their position consciously, what was not a rare case in local banks, but the economic delay from 1925 had led them into the position to incapacitate them to meet their duties. The solution for this situation overcoming in which the bank found itself had ben settle in a way that financially stronger businessmen from Skopje had taken over stocks of the Commercial Bank, which meant its displacement from Kosovska Mitrovica into Skopje. The bank had two branch offices: in Skopje and in Prishtina, and soon after the seat transfer in Skopje, the branch office in Prishtina was closed, and the same was to be done in the former central office in Kosovska Mitrovica. New bank's branch office was in Gostivar, what speaks that the bank transferred all its business activities from Kosovo and Metohija into Southern Serbia. Unprecedented crisis had struck the Commercial Bank as well, so that it was forced to reduce its share capital and enter the circle of banks which 'subsisted' until the beginning of WWI in the area of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
