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Franz Josef Square and the Savings Bank

1905

Central bank, Novi Sad Savings Bank, 1910

Grand Hotel Mayer and the Savings Bank

1910s

About this place

The Novi Sad Savings Bank was founded in 1864 and is reckoned the oldest financial institution in Serbia; it became Novosadska banka, which joined the Erste group in 2005. Its house stood on the main square, called Franz Joseph Square under Austria-Hungary and Trg slobode today, next door to the Grand Hotel, and postcards sold the pair together under a double caption, Takarékpénztár és Grand Hotel in Hungarian and Sparkasse und Grand Hotel in German. The building was an eclectic palace with a giant order of columns running through the upper floors and a pedimented centre pierced by a round window, its own name cut across the entablature in Hungarian as Újvidéki Takarékpénztár, with shops at street level. György Molnár, who designed the Town Hall and the Catholic church on the same square, was elected the bank's general director in 1876; who designed its building is not recorded here. One of the archive’s cards names the same house as the Central Bank, Központi Takarékpénztár and Централна Банка, so the institution traded under both stylings.

Trg slobode, Novi Sad

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Savings Bank, Liberty Square

Franz Josef Square and the Savings Bank

Central bank

Grand Hotel Mayer and the Savings Bank