Bankledger - the first savings bank office in Gothenburg
Register from Sweden's first savings bank, founded in 1820 on the initiative of Eduard Ludendorff. The first deposit, 12 skilling, was made by three-year-old Carolina Bernhardina Hammardahl.
The idea of savings banks was to promote savings. Their predecessors were the various forms of 18th century savings banks in Germany and the UK. A direct model for Swedish savings banks was Scotland, where Henry Duncan said that ‘anyone should be allowed to deposit any small amount and retain ownership and free disposal of the funds deposited’.
A factor in the success of the Swedish savings banks was that, from the outset, they were both self-sustaining without state interference and lent money against good collateral.
