Baština (Jan 2018)
Vranje's Economic Bank: Joint stock company
Abstract
Great needs of the state and population after the WWI requested gathering and placement of all available capital funds. One of the consequences of this situation was the working renewal, and appearance of a great deal of monetary institutions, especially in the south-eastern part of the Kingdom of SCS. Vranje's Economic Bank initiated its business in the middle of 1923, and was mostly doing with short-time crediting as per drafts of tobacco growers, craftsmen, traders, and barkeepers. Due to the economic crisis which began to be felt in 1925, a number of farmer clients had increased drastically and they soon became dominant clients to which Vranje's Economic Bank had placed over half of all loans. In order to advance, and lose strong competition in Vranje, Vranje's Economic Bank opened a branch office in 1926 in Bujanovac, which was transferred in Kumanovo as economically more vivid place, and which had twice as many residents from Bujanovac and Vranje. As per the quantity of the placed loans bank's branch office in Kumanovo overtook the central office in Vranje. Until the outbreak of the bank-agrarian crisis in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1931, shareholders of Vranje's Commercial Bank enjoyed a stable dividend. Bank crisis was reflected in the crisis of trust, which led to the withdrawal of saving deposits from banks and inability to effect loans collection from peasants due to the passing of the Law on Farmers Protection in 1932. The situation at money market was such that normal work of banks was paralyzed, and a lot of them had to put themselves under protection. Vranje's Economic Bank was the last which looked for protection, and thanks to great deal of real estates and positive work in the second half of the 1930s of the 20th century largely managed to settle its obligations toward savers.
