The strategies of French savings banks (nineteeth-twentieth centuries)

Hubert Bonin, professor of economic history at the Institut d’études politiques de Bordeaux (Centre Montesquieu d’histoire économique-

IFReDE-Bordeaux 4 University) [h.bonin@sciencespobordeaux.fr]

We intend to present a global overview of the key topics of the history of French savings banks. Business history about French savings banks has progressed a lot since a decade owing to numerous regional studies about dozens of entities among the hundreds which constituted the scattered pieces of the savings banks movement and owing to the French Association for Savings Banks’ History, linked to a European federation of such dedicated banking and business history. The mobilisation of this huge material helps to understand the underlying forces which led to the building of an institution still active1 – whilst launched as soon as 1818 – and even gathering momentum through the merger of the savings banks into a few regional enterprises and the structuration of a real group in the 1980s then through an alliance with Caisse des dépôts, a public institution, in 2001 in order to build a European-sized financial and banking group.

This recent renewal cannot hide anyway the lagging pace followed by French Savings banks in front of their German, Italian or Austrian counterparts throughout their history2. Still in the 1960s-1970s they appeared as weak institutions unable to cope with the extension of new banking and financial products, to conquer new regional markets and therefore to resist the upsurge of classical banks or of cooperative or mutual institutions (Crédit agricole, Crédit mutuel, Banques populaires) towards ‘mass banking’ and the market of small & medium sized companies and of ‘professionals’. The contrast – even the contradiction – between such a weakness and the roots established deeply by savings banks into savers’ markets might be the key debate: French savings banks were so strongly led upwards by philanthropic ideas and moral values in favour of savings collection, so intensely sustained by the state and its armed branch Caisse des dépôts, so intimately promoted by local notabilities, that one can’t help raising questions about their ability to build a solid group and trying to gather some explanations.

Was it a lack of penetration into the savings market? Were there foibles in front of competitors? Did savings banks keep too much and too longly a social mission, thus lacking financial means to invest and develop their networks and management systems? Did

they meet large deficits in technical, managerial, commercial skills? Did they endure some distrust from savers, which could have led to unstable moves, runs, trust crisis? Or were there some more structural causes, which could explain such deficiencies? Did the state then exert legal and day to day influences that disrupted savings banks efficiency? This study intends thus to synthesise the answers to such questions as they are now well available owing to last decade’s researches by junior researchers and some recent books published by the French savings banks’ history Association.

1. The strength of savings banks on the savings market

The institutional, geographical and social basis of Savings banks did provide them with a huge network of entities, branches and customers: a mass market has been set up all along the 19th century and enlarged thereafter.

A. A bunch of social and philanthropic ideas and values

The immaterial basis of French savings banks are well known3 as enlightened notabilities – from Paris business circles or gentry or from provincial towns’ bourgeoisies – promoted a form of social order where petty people could be diverted from poverty, alcoholism, habits or mentalities threatening social and political stability. A strong commitment in favour of such institutions explained the upsurge of savings banks as soon as the 1820s (Paris: 1818; Bordeaux: 1819) and especially between the 1830s and the 1860s. Besides that quantitative aspect the key point might be a real involvement of numerous bourgeois, local VIP, into the management and supervision of savings banks, as the members of the board (called directeurs) assumed their part-time tasks benevolently. They got involved there whilst they generally took in charge too societies to help schools, hospitals, institutions for poors, charities. And they godfathered the creation of mutual societies whose members gathered funds against health difficulties, etc. within an environment of social-liberalism which insisted on individual responsibility to assume dire events throughout a labourer’s life. Doctors, lawyers, solicitors, local high civil servants, bankers, wholesale merchants or industrialists, property owners in regional capitals (chefs-lieux de département ou de canton) – like in Marseille4 – or in the countryside around, gathered their capital of influence to entice people to rally the new institution and to put there their savings; the Nantes savings bank was thus built in 1821 by wholesale traders and shipowners with the help of the administrative and economic authorities. Bankers themselves took part to that movement as savings banks bore no direct competition to them: Charles Guilhot, a powerful local

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banker in Agen (Lot-et-Garonne), vice-presided (1923-1929) and presided (1929-1934) the savings bank of Agen. In fact savings banks were deeply representative of middle towns all over “France moyenne”, that is independent upper middle classes.

Up to the 1960s this bourgeois’ involvement was a cornerstone of the reputation of savings banks as a source of creditworthiness, and the experience in management could help reaching and maintaining basic rules of administration and book-keeping, in order to follow the path of rapidly growing operations. The repeated campaigns to convince people to assume a saving attitude were greatly sustained by these notabilities’ influence among companies’ employees, among people in contact with doctors, lawyers, etc., among peasants impulsed by villages’ leaders, etc. People had to be persuaded to keep some money aside and to drop it into savings banks’ cashiers; it was a way of educating people, of “instructing” them, that is to integrate within the common values of social order, especially the concern for hard times, for retirement times, etc., along the key word of “foresight” (prévoyance). Still in the interwar, savings was asserted as a “school for will power”5 (volonté) and economists proning a social-liberalism able to keep social rest and balance called for such a “reserve savings”6 which provided stabilisation to the global society while “creative savings” were collected by banks to finance economic growth. A three part move gained momentum, as people were oriented simultaneously towards savings at savings banks; second, membership to mutual insurance companies (laws in 1850 and 1898); and, last, membership to a public retirement institution, Caisse nationale de retraites pour la vieillesse (now CNP-Caisse nationale de prévoyance)7, at a time when no social security system existed (up to a first law in 1910 and the implementation of a proto-system in the 1930s). A sign of this philanthropic basis was the fact that the savings banks depended from the ministry for Labour & Foresight until 1941, when the ministry of Finance took them in charge alongside banking activities.

Savings banks benefited from this convergence of incentives to keep some money aside and it constituted a strong basis against the competition of local banks – tempting to lure little amounts of savings – and sometimes of the branches of big Paris banks. This immaterial capital might seem thus as a key heritage of history. The Belle Époque (around 1900-1914) and the interwar eased somehow the development of savings banks8: the industrialisation trend, the reinforcement of a waged workforce and urbanisation contributed to the raise of standards of life; the part of people’s budget earmarked to food decreased from two-thirds to a half (among industrial labourers) at the end of the 1930s; and lower classes renting their

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lodging profitted somehow from the freezing of rents in the interwar, which explains the light part of house renting in labourers’ budget (6 to 10%) at the end of the 1930s.

Savings banks were able therefore to sustain the move of “demunicipalisation” of their statutes which occurred in the interwar by many cities, as townhalls wished to alleviate their involvement into the original system of guarantees and controls – the 1941 law completed that move by generalising the savings banks’ autonomy, whilst alleviating the risk endured by cities. These latter less and less provided savings banks with their official guaranty and left their board leeward to manage its business.

B. Building an efficient savings collecting system

The creation move appeared in the 1820-1830s (14 between 1818 and 1830; then 83 in 1835; their number jumped from 27 in 1833 to 270 in 1838 and 364 in 1847; and 735,000 savings books were already opened in 1848 (with an asset of 355 million francs). The juxtaposition of numerous initiatives resulted in the building of an archipelago of independent Savings banks all over French départements (administrative districts): each one often welcomed a dozen of them as notabilities chose to set up a society in their circle of influence along principles of autonomy: 89 savings banks were located in the capital of the département, 161 in that of the arrondissement (a subdivision) and 291 in the capital of the canton, a still much smaller area, a town where there was generally a weekly market and some car or rail crossroad. This explains the growth of the number of savings banks up to several hundreds. Philanthropic purposes were crowend by financial success indeed9.

Table 1. The network of savings banksNumber of savings banks

(without overseas)Number of branches and outlets (without overseas

nor Alsace-Lorraine)1847 3641850 2001880 5361889 1,0001900 1,3001915 548 1,8841930 560 2,0051939 559 2,248

(2,187 branches and 61 auxiliary outlets)

1939 To these 559 one has to add 127 savings banks in Alsace-Lorraine

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1946 556(and 19 in Alsace-Lorraine)

2,823 (2,207 branches and 60 auxiliary outlets)

1950 3,3401952 585

(historical maximum)

Some of them anyway reached an important level as they supervised savings collection in a whole township: Paris10, Saint-Étienne11, Lyon, Marseille, and Bordeaux, for instance. The number of savers grew in Paris from 65,000 in 1835 to 755,000 in 1945; behind that giant, Marseille (492,000), Lyon (470,000), Bordeaux (221,000) or Metz (77,000) looked already as mass banking establishments, far before the upsurge of mass-banking at the end of the 1960s. The range of savings banks was thus broad with a few dozen large companies, equipped with stout and monumental headquarters, rounded by hundreds little ones, even if their discreet look hid in fact a deep penetration into small towns and big villages. Globally, in 1913, 8,7 million savers attends savings banks, 9,3 million in 1930 and 12,5 million in 1945. Savings banks constituted finally the first banking network which in France draw the lines for ‘mass banking’ through their numerous outlets (almost 2,000 in 1915; 4,214 in 1960) and their massive customership, at times when banks welcomed essentially bourgeoisies and neglected (up to the 1960s) a mass banking profile. Huge amounts of money were thus collected; in 1892, a total of 3,227 million francs was the global asset of 6,1 million savings books.

C. Sociological success: savings banks as ‘penny banks’

As their founders intended it, savings banks asserted themselves as ‘penny banks’ dedicated to help lower classes12 to go through uneasy times or to pile up a first patrimonial base. In fact there were rarely in France true ‘penny banks’ as in England, that is savings banks included within the range of firms’ paternalist tools to protect their employees. But bourgeoisies and the various state and administrative authorities favoured the diffusion of ‘moral values’ among masses: social foresight, growth of the sense of responsibility in order to build a balanced life between consumer spending and savings – as no compulsory social security system emerged before the 1930s-1940s. Mutual social fundings protected against the troubles of life, voluntary savings in retirement funds against the troubles of age, monts de piété against misery and usury, savings banks acting last against the troubles of economic situation. They helped to preserve some minimal standard of life against unemployment or adverse events; they forged too a savings culture among people, as “a school of will power” – as it was then said.

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Figures show the success of that social liberal strategy: in 1929 savings books with an amount of equal or less than 1,500 francs reach the number of 6,3 million, whereas the average deposit is of 2,180 francs, and they constituted 73% of the total of savings books (by the sole savings banks, without studying here the Postal savings bank); 2,1 million savings books (24,1%) gathered between 1,501 and 7,500 francs. A few while later, in 1948, 13,5 million savings books – 54,7% of the total – gathered less than 3,000 francs, which shows the popular basis of this sector. Among savers, lower and low-middle classes were a heavy part of the total (with 35,5% in 1913 and 36% in 1929); that percentage might be in fact higher as a similar part (37%) is reached by minor people (under 21) without any profession, which disturb the assessment of the sociological reality – even if these minors are a constant social and moral target of savings banks. Savings banks remained thus faithful to their social philosophy to set a bridge between popular classes and middle bourgeoisies13.

When the national representative office of savings banks launched intruments of propaganda in the interwar, through posters, blotting papers or movies, the social purpose of the savings book was still enhanced14. The film L’Ange du foyer (1932) told of the perseverant savings of a labourer’s wife against her improvident husband’s will, and of the fate of these savings after the sudden death of this woman: her widower faced unemployment and misery and could survive them only thanks to his wife’s savings and thus educate his child. Another film, Hymne à l’apargne, appeared in 1932, under the banner of the Journée internationale de l’épargne, founded in 1929. The development of the social protection of labourers (through enterprises’ social systems) and of their habits of savings through Caisse nationale des retraites and mutual welfare societies did not apparently weakened savings banks because the growth of living standards allowed to diversify the allocation of resources among the various systems of protection for labourers and ageing people, all the more because, up to the 1960s, consumption of household appliances and of cars remained scarce among middle and lower classes. Some details confirm the sociological penetration of savings banks among lower classes, especially people with unstable jobs and incomes, which enticed them to pile up some savings:

Table 2. Weight of various socioprofessional types among savings books holders

1912 1924 1929 Paris in 1938

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dayly labourers and rural labourer

9,3% 8% 8,7%

industrial labourers 12,6 14,5 12 24%domestic staff 5 7,3 10 16,1military staff, seamen or variouspermanent auxiliary employees

1,05 0,7 0,85 1,1

under 21 non working youngsters

39,2 44 37,3 32,9

Numerous local business stories confirm that trend either in Paris or in provincial savings banks; in Paris these lower and low-middle classes provide 42,9% of the 38,000 savings books holders (75,9 % with youngsters); in Libourne, a middle-size Gironde town such figures are enlarged by the importance of independent low-class workers15:

Table 3. Sociological origin of the subscribers of new savings books at the savings bank of Libourne (in Gironde) (units)

in 1922-1923 in 1936dayly workers and agricultural labourers 773 202industrial labourers and women working for industry at home

169 16

domestic workers 73 24services employees 91 23non working minors 1,025 348landowners, liberal professionals and people living with their financial income

380 240

businessmen 72 42

Whatever the limits we shall pose further, savings banks succeeded in penetrating deeply into French society. Cornut16 noted thus that a quarter of successoral assets possessed a savings book in 1934 instead of a fifth in 1908. The number of savings books progressed from 8,7 million in 1913 to 12,6 million in 1945: one French people on four had opened such a book by a savings bank.

D. Trusted savings banks: psychological hazards

One main success of savings banks was the invisible but strong sociopsychological progress towards creditworthiness: these petty institutions, scattered all around the country, gained a reputation of perennity whereas most of local banks disappeared all along the banking move towards amalgamation. They emerged more and more as “local banks” for deposit collecting, as managers of lower and middle classes’ assets – whilst true banks managed bourgeoisies’ fortunes. As urbanisation was developing, as city labourers were looking for institutions able to cashier some

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liquidities, although large parts of these classes desperately lacked any financial or banking legitimacy and a real insertion within the institutionalised social framework, savings banks provided them with some way of asserting themselves as stable pieces of society. They were reinsured by the more and more patent stability of these savings banks, able to resist crisis of confidence, recessions, social troubles, wars or financial crashes. One telling sign of the undisputed solidity of savings banks was the building of headquarters here and there owing to a sane management of the financial reserves (“fortune personnelle”) piled up by savings banks. They invested in well-off buildings17, especially in the 1880s-1910s and in the interwar: savings banks acceded thus to a respectability that proved that the society in general intended to cove popular assets.

Political and financial hazardsBut savings banks could not live without their political and

financial environment. Some disturbing events had already occurred during the 1848 revolution18, when some savings banks had to be closed because of a local run – which enticed authorities to fix a ceiling (100 francs) on withdrawals. Thereafter, some regional collective worries led savers to rush to their savings bank, for example in 1883 – because one savings bank suffered from a fraud – or more generally during the 1880s because of the incertitude on financial markets. General environment’s troubles explained outburst of distrust. The sole factor to spur depositors’ runs was war-time. During the 1870-1871 French-German war, the state had to impose the freeze of withdrawals after 75 days of warfare.

Savings banks found a psychological and financial instrument in the fact that the state created in 1895 a Reserve & Guaranty Fund in Paris to keep some of the benefits of assets management and thus provide the savings banks structure with some financial reserves; that fund itself produced profits which were reinvested. A second rule within the 1895 law was the establishment of a “safeguard clause”; it allowed managers to limit to 50 francs by two weeks any withdrawal. Durability was thus the motto19. The state used the safeguard clause as soon as 31 July 1914, that is on the verge of the conflict; Caisse des dépôts was able to face the repayment demands thanks to cash availabilites stocked at Banque de France and the Treasury20. The safeguard clause was suspended as soon as September 1916 because confidence has been globally reestablished and because the state encouraged the move from savings accounts to the purchase of state bonds to finance the war budget deficit. These causes of uncertainty explain that, expressed in constant francs, the collection of savings by savings banks dwindled by two-thirds between 1915 and 1920.

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Interwar uncertaintiesThe tutelage by Caisse des dépôts became another asset for

savings banks in the interwar when their collection of liquid deposits from lower and middle bourgeoisies (within quite deposit accounts for treasury management) raised the risk of sudden and sharp crisis of confidence. Growing amounts of such deposits could be much more volatile than classical savings accounts, and concerns were expressed about such an uncertainty: were not savings banks confronted to the risk of “panics” and massive withdrawals? That could force the state and Caisse des dépôts – because of the “guaranty” of deposits – to draw from the Reserve & Guaranty Fund or even to inject cash to face huge withdrawals, or even to use the legal “safeguard clause”, that is the suspension of account repayments in case of crisis – like the suspension which took place in the USA in March 1933 – and that would seriously shake the savings banks system because it laid on trust. Happily such a turnaround of savers’ confidence did not occur.

After a short while when instalments overpassed repayments in 1918-1922, trust vanished when the crisis of the franc occurred in 1922-1926; liquid hoarding prevailed over banking and savings accounts. Only in 1927 did savings banks reach the 1916 level: a decade had been virtually rubbed off from their history... Happily, growth and confidence converged thereafter to spur a doubling of deposits in constant francs between 1927 and 1931: new records of excess of instalments against repayments were settled in 1928-1929, when political and financial stability has been recovered. Then the volatility phenomon21 played positively in favour of savings banks through cash flows from banks to savings banks during the banking crash of the 1931-1935 years22 – even if the trend became actually23 stronger since 1934 –, then during the political unrest of 1936-1937. The volume of deposits gained 50% between 1930 and 1935 in current francs as a peak in the interwar history.

Savings banks suffered somehow in 1936-1938 from political unrest24 – the collection of deposits drew back by a third in constant francs between 1935 and 1936 – and in 1938-1942 from prevailing war uncertainty – the Munich crisis, the Spanish civil war, etc.). But no actual crisis of confidence occurred: globally, savings banks were perceived as stable institutions. Caisse des dépôts chose anyway to develop the role of the Reserve & Guaranty Fund so as to reinforce its ratio between its assets and the total of collected deposits: it grew regularly from 3,2% in 1923 to 8 % in 1930 and was stabilised at this level during the 1930s, which means that its amount grew

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sensibly as the deposits themselves increased massively; in 1937-1940, the ratio even exceeded 10%.

The 1914-1940 years cemented confidence, which had been only ponctually shattered but never broken. No internal crisis threatened savings banks and, after the 1916-1926 backward move due to inflation and general incertitude, their penetration into lower and middle classes’ assets resumed its growth. That trust was enhanced by a somehow bureaucratic modus operandi as each operation had to be officialised (up to May 1950)25 by the signature of two men in charge, a manager and a member of the board, which tended to guarantee any misconduct. During the years of uncertainty of the 1914-1945 period, a wise and prudent management, somehow an even conservative one, allowed savings banks to keep a low profile and to assert themselves as unbrilliant but trustworthy institutions – which was confirmed when most of them lost the guarantee of municipalities without enduring any setbacks thereafter.

E. Towards technological evolution

Paradoxically one could pretend that this very low profile management was by itself a proof of efficiency… In fact savings banks collected a huge amount of money whereas they rallied only a few means: scarce networks of simple branches; small numbers of employees (2,400 in 1952; 5,200 in 1967); rare executive officers (a controller, an accountant, a cashier, a general manager, generally, and not among the best paid officers in the banking profession…). Everywhere they were managed along conservative ways of day to day functioning because of scarcity of money.

That very concern led to a large policy of equipping themselves with brand new bunch cards equipments in the 1950s-1960s: they invested to save money in order to cater with the growing number of operations as higher standards of life allowed people to develop their savings deposits. Because the small range of their activities – as it will be showed further – could not provide them with large revenues and profits, they had therefore to shrink expenses in order to increase their income. That technological move went on in the 1960s-1970 as most savings banks invested in large computer equipments; before any institutional move towards amalgamation, they associated themselves in order to build technical centres able to manage huge hardware systems: 14 were active thus in 1971. A technical culture was thus emerging as savings banks asserted themselves as a leverage force to establish in France accounts management techniques, either carbon paperboards systems,

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punch-cards systems or computer devices. Technical answers were set up to confront mass savings collecting – but savings banks failed at that time to conceive an effective human resources management and got satisfied of piling up employees.

2. The structural foibles of French savings banks

Discreetly French savings banks succeeded thus in building a financial tool really efficient in collecting huge amounts of money, especially (and not surprisingly) among lower and middle classes, therefore more or less integrated within the global structure of French society as social-liberal ideologies prevailed which conceived a community of responsibility and philanthropy rather than one of rationalised solidarity. Within that framework one might consider that savings banks constituted in the 1890s-1950s a cornerstone of that policy. Anyway some restrictive remarks might be opposed to that optimistic view as several foibles hampered the social mission of savings banks or prevented them to extend their grip as far as wished by philanthropic theoreticians initially.

A. Savings banks as a leverage to social promotion or social conservatism?

Paradoxically their very success led savings banks to somehow betraying their original mission, the defence of lower classes… On one side, the figures prove that savings banks did not lure sufficiently true industrial blue-collars. Their popular roots were rather found among independent labourers as we showed it beforehand; blue-collars attended them less than house staff people, personal maids, petty services employees or industrial labourers working at home. Conversely blue-collars attended more mutual welfare societies or perhaps rejected more frequently the principle itself of becoming depositors at savings banks accused of being inserted within the bourgeois system…

Table 4. Départements equipped with the larger number of savings banks’ outlets

in 1938Rather rural

départementsrather rural départements but with

strong industrial polesRather industrial or

commercial115 Sarthe

89 Nord85 Rhône

77 Yonne76 Marne71 Loiret70 Seine-et-

Marne

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70 Aisne64 Aube64 Saône-et-Loire

58 Loir-et-Cher56 Gironde

Meurthe-et-Moselle

55 Loire53 Seine-Inférieure

52 Haute-Marne51 Meuse

49 Bouches-du-Rhône

48 Ardennes46 Somme (textiles cities)

44 Seine44 Var

Some social failure might thus be noticed: in several areas and towns, French savings banks did not assert themselves as large industrial workers’ favourite institutions, sustained by trade unions or socialist ideology. Admittedly some industrial cities or areas (départements) with large blue-collars basis were equipped with strong savings banks; Saint-Étienne, Marseille, Bordeaux and Paris itself, for instance, hosted important industrial activities and their savings banks were among the most developed. But savings banks in numerous industrial départements or areas were thinly welcoming blue-collars either if their income was not sufficient to allow them to save money (price of accommodation, etc.) or because they were reluctant to attend savings banks, preferring to keep their liquidities at home. Parallely many big savings banks were more active in rural areas and might be perceived as some kind of rural local deposit banks.

Conversely it is well known that middle and middle-upper classes enjoyed attending savings banks in order to profit with the high real interest rates and with the state guarantee. Bourgeois’ savings were thus piled up and they even provided the bulge of money collected by savings banks… even if their number of accounts were of course a minority. Lower classes (with 71,1 % of savings-books’ number) and low-middle classes (with 24,1%) brought only 11,8% and 52,6% of deposits in 1929, whereas 4,8% savings-books with the highest amount level gathered 26,5% of these deposits. A little later, in 1948, whilst 54,7% of savings books with an amount lower than 3,000 francs grouped 1,8% of deposits, and while middle-levelled books between 3,000 and 60,000 francs gathered 35,2% of books and 38,5% deposits, a minority of 3 million books with an amount higher than 60,000 francs, that is 12,1% of

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the total, piled up 59,7% of deposits. Savings banks played some part as deposit banks at times when the networks of banks were still not intensely scattered out.

Well-eased classes knew therefore how to profit with the savings banks system, a situation which classical banks have been denouncing since the beginning of the century and particularly in the 1930s – when themselves were weakened by the financial crisis. For some classes the savings bank book was used as a current account whilst a majority of lower classes attended Savings banks only a few times a year and kept faithful to the social foresight mission of the institution.

Middle bourgeoisies supported mainly savings banks as France was rich with petty businessmen (in retail trade, light industries, transport, etc.) and they were somehow reluctant to lodge all their liquidities and account by a sole banker or by the sole classical banks, ever eager to be harder with these middlemen that with customers of a higher level of fortune and consideration. « La France des petits », that is France of petty businessmen, was as important among conceptions of the global society than the defence of blue-collars or popular classes as the social-liberal model favoured the upwardly process from that latter to the « France des petits » all along the IIIrd and the IVth Republic regimes. This explains why banks became more and more critical26 of the intervention of savings banks among professionals and petty businessmen; they were numerous to open an account by a close branch of a savings banks for their current operations and the management of their liquid treasury, all the more because trust towards savings banks grew during the successive crisis endured by the banking sector in the interwar. Far from keeping a profile of savings accounts, such accounts became deposit accounts and instruments of means of payment, with each member of the craftsman, professional or little businessman’s family opening an account to enlarge the amount of accessible liquid money – even if the check did not exist yet (not until the 1970s).

B. Geographical disparities among savings banks

The fact that savings in industrial and blue-collars areas were not siphoned enough might be explained too because savings banks didn’t show a sufficiently combative mood. A huge majority were managed along a conservative way by notabilities which didn’t designed schemes of economic and competitive development but pleaded only for some philanthropic remedy to social disturbances. Finally French savings banks were not so much developed as in

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some other European countries, if we consider the number of savings books per inhabitant:

Table 5. Number of savings banks books for each hundred inhabitants in 1934

83% Sweden78 Japan

Norway67 Belgium63 Luxembourg59 Denmark

1 Charles-Albert Michalet, Les placements des épargnants français de 1815 à nos jours, Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1968. Daniel Duet, Les Caisses d’épargne françaises et leur activité. Tradition ou évolution (1818-1981), Paris, Les Éditions de l’épargne, 1983. Daniel Duet, La métamorphose des Caisses d'épargne, Paris, Les Éditions de l’épargne, 1986. Antoine Moster & Bernard Vogler, « France », in History of European savings banks, Stuttgart, Deutscher Sparkassenverlag, 1996, pages 75-104. M. Cormont, Les Caisses d’épargne en France, Paris, 1922.

2 The Association pour l’histoire des Caisses d’épargne publishes Les Cahiers pour l’histoire de l’épargne and sponsors scholars’ researches.

3 André Gueslin, « L’invention des Caisses d’épargne en France : une grande utopie libérale », Revue historique, n°572, September-December 1989, pages 391-409. André Gueslin, « Aux origines de l’État-providence : la mise en place du modèle français des Caisses d’épargne », Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, April-June 1991, pages 231-250.

4 Laure Americi, « Élites sociales et Caisse d’épargne : le cas des Bouches-du-Rhône », Les Cahiers de l’épargne, juin 1999, pages 17-40.

5 René Laurent, Le rôle des Caisses d’épargne dans la formation de l’épargne nationale. 130 ans d’épargne française, thesis by the Paris University, Paris, Les éditions de l’épargne et de la prévoyance, 1946, page 20.

6 Charles Rist, « Quelques définitions de l’épargne. Essai de critique », Revue d’économie politique, December1921.

7 Cf. Jean-Marie Thiveaud (et alii), 200 ans de prévoyance, Paris, Caisse nationale de prévoyance, 1989. Jean-Marie Thiveaud (et alii), Du dépôt au dépositaire, Paris, Caisse des dépôts et consignations et Association d’économie financière, 1998.

8 M. Coupry, Contribution à l’histoire des Caisses d’épargne ordinaires en France, Bordeaux, 1935. J. Lescure, L’épargne en France, 1914-1934, Paris, Donat-Monchrestien, 1936. R. Cuvillier, L’épargne populaire en France avant et après la Révolution jusqu’à nos jours, Paris, 1936. Jules Denuc, « Éléments statistiques sur l’épargne française depuis 1928 », Bulletin de la Statistique générale de France, tome XXVI, juillet-septembre 1937. Pierre Dieterlen, « L’épargne », in De la France d’avant-guerre à la France d’aujourd’hui, special issue of Revue d’économie politique, January-February 1939, pages 393-438.

9 Carole Christen-Lécuyer, « De la philanthropie à la réussite financière : le mouvement des Caisses d’épargne de 1818 à 1881 », Les

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56 Austria48 France27

41 Netherlands40 Italy33 Great Britain32 Germany17 Switzerland13 United States

Likewise the assessment of the average amount of deposits per inhabitant shows that France reached only a middle-size position28 :

Table 6. Value29 of the average deposit in savings banks per inhabitant (in Swiss francs) in 1934

540 Norway471 Sweden424 Denmark323 Luxembourg297 France274 Switzerland269 United States254 Netherlands

Cahiers pour l’histoire de l’épargne, juin 1999, pages 9-24. Carole Christen-Lécuyer, Histoire sociale et culturelle des Caisses d’épargne en France, 1818-1881, Paris, Économica, 2004.

10 E. Bayard, La Caisse d’épargne et de prévoyance de Paris, Paris, Hachette, 1982. 1818-1968, Caisse d’épargne et de prévoyance de Paris, cent cinquantenaire, Paris, 1968.

11 Olivier Gignoux, « Naissance et développement de la Caisse d’épargne de Saint-Etienne, 1832-1871 », Les Cahiers de l’épargne, juin 1999, pages 73-89.

12 Cf. André Gueslin, Gens pauvres. Pauvres gens dans la France du XIXe siècle, Paris, Aubier-Flammarion, 1998. André Gueslin, Les gens de rien. Une histoire de la pauvreté dans la France du XXe siècle, Paris, Fayard, 2004. André Gueslin, L’invention de l’économie sociale. Le XIXe siècle français, Paris, Économica, 1987. Charles Dupin, La Caisse d’épargne et les ouvriers, Paris, Firmin-Didot, 1837. Laure de Llamby (ed.), Les Caisses d’épargne dans la littérature, XIXe siècle, Paris, Les Éditions de l’épargne, 2000.

13 175 ans déjà... La Caisse d’épargne en Haute-Normandie. Des origines à nos jours, 1820-1995, internal book, 1995. La Caisse d’épargne de Nantes. Des origines à 1950, Nantes, Caisse d’épargne des Pays de la Loire, Les Éditions de l’épargne, 1998. La Caisse d’épargne de Midi-Pyrénées, 1830-1996, Caisse d’épargne de Midi-Pyrénées, Toulouse, 1996.

14 Cf. the catalogue of the exhibition La Caisse d’épargne à tous les âges, Paris, Association pour l’histoire des Caisses d’épargne et CENCEP, Les Éditions de l’épargne, 2002.

15 Stéphane Boyer, La Caisse d’épargne de Libourne (1914-1939), Bordeaux 3 University research dissertation, 1996.

15

243 Italy234 Germany218 Great Britain188 Belgium

One could assert that savings banks did not try and succeed in struggling zealously enough against liquidities hoarding among popular and middle classes. Conservatism, slow growth, caution prevailed as sometimes managers or the authorities themselves express their concern in front of a too rapid expansion of deposits…

16 Paul Cornut, Contribution à la recherche de la répartition de la fortune privée en France et dans chaque département au cours de la première moitié du XXe siècle, law thesis, Paris University, 1963. Quoted by André Gueslin, « Banks and state in France from the 1880s to the 1930s: the impossible advance of the banks », in Youssef Cassis (ed.), Finance and financiers in European history, 1880-1960, Cambridge University Press, 1992, page 79.

17 Jean-François Pinchon, Hôtel de la Caisse d’épargne de Paris. 200 ans d’histoire, 1994. Madeleine Leveau-Fernandez, Hôtels de Caisses d’épargne. Deux cents ans d’histoire, Paris, les Éditions de l’épargne, 1994.

18 Carole Christen-Lécuyer, « La crise des Caisses d’épargne françaises en 1848 », Revue d’histoire du XIXe siècle, n°16, 1998/1.

19 That guarantee fund constituted some kind of virtual ‘capital’ for the savings banks structure, which appeared when savings banks were ‘privatised’ through a cooperative way at the end of the 20th century; a debate rouse then about who possessed that guarantee fund, the State or the savings banks? Finally the amount was shared between the state and the savings banks, which could thus sell their shares to subscribers and keep that money by themselves.

20 Rapport au Sénat et à la Chambre des députés de la Commission de surveillance de la Caisse d’amortissement et de la Caisse des dépôts sur l’année 1914, archives of the Mission historique de la Caisse des dépôts.

21 Cf. Hubert Bonin, « Les Caisses d’épargne françaises (1914-1945) : une croissance mouvementée sans évolution stratégique », in L’histoire des Caisses d’épargne européennes. Tome 4. Conjoncture & crises, 1914-1945, Paris, Les Éditions de l’épargne, 1999, pages 105-175.

22 René Boulle, Les grands établissements de crédit devant la crise, Paris, Éditions de la Revue d’économie politique, 1938. Hubert Bonin, Les banques françaises de l’entre-deux-guerres, Paris, P.L.A.G.E, 2000.

23 “Le compte des ménages et les masses monétaires”, in Pierre Villa, Monographies d’économétrie. Une analyse macroéconomique de la France au XXe siècle, Paris, CNRS Editions, 1993, page 365.

24 Cf. Vincent Tournié, Épargne et crises dans la France des années 1930. L’exemple des Caisses d’épargne, Paris, Les Éditions de l’épargne, 2002.

25 That self-control was set up owing to the duplication of operations on carton paperboards.

16

Several experts promoted a faster rhythm of creation of branches, a decisive rise of the deposit ceiling which couldn’t follow up the rate of inflation in the 1910-1926 and 1936-1955 years. The state itself used the development of the Postal savings banks system as a leverage to alleviate the monopoly of traditional savings banks – and 7 000 in 1892, then 13 000 in 1915-1939 postal offices proposed Postal savings books (in front of less than 3,000 outlets for savings banks in 1946.

Geographical disparities between savings banks resulted from huge differences in dynamism and expansion policies; some départements or cities benefited from a pushing strategy and were thus equipped more intensively with branches. Only 24 savings banks were equipped with twenty or more branches in the interwar; whereas the presence large towns there seems logic, some other cities are only middle or small-sized towns, which shows that a lot of other cities of that type remained under-equipped.

Table 7. Number of branches and auxiliary outlets (1938)

Marseille 49Paris 44Lyon 43Villefranche-sur-Saône 32BordeauxLe Mans

31

MamersToulouse30

30

MontargisRoanne

26

AuxerreBloisRomorantin

25

AngoulêmeLaonLa Flèche

24

BesançonNîmesTroyes

23

26 Henri Darrès, Concurrence des Caisses d’épargne et des banques de dépôts, Law thesis, Lille University, 1933. Achille Dauphin-Meunier, « Les dépôts dans les Caisses d’épargne. Concurrence des Caisses d’épargne et des banques commerciales », revue Banque, 1936, pages 377-379.

27 R. Laurent, op.cit.28 R. Laurent, op.cit.29 Ibidem, page 36.

17

Roubaix 22Laval 21CoulommiersLimogesVienne

20

21 savings banks had more than 20 outlets; 53 between 11 and 20; 64 between 6 and 10; 96 between 2 and 5; 45 had only one

contact point locates at their headquarters

Many savings banks were dwarf deposit banking institutions. Locally such geographical disparities appeared too, as fir the case study of Gironde, where the Bordeaux savings bank dominated its sister companies which lack financial means to root savings habits all over the département.

Table 8. The hegemony of the Bordeaux savings bank in Girondenumber of savings

books in 1930total amount of deposits

(million francs)in 1926 in 1930

Savings bank of:Bordeaux 204,520 214,6 463,2Libourne 32,399 31,6 69,2La Réole 13,411 17,6 33,1Blaye 4,798 5,6 11Bourg/Gironde 3,647 5 9,6Bazas 3,737 4,7 9,4Langon 3,371 4,5 8,6Saint-Savin (in 1926)

2,800 3,6

Lesparre (in 1926) 1,900 2,2Pauillac 2,043 1,6 3,7

A proof of these geographical disparities is provided by the measure of the density of savings books among population: some savings banks succeeded in fact – even in medium-sized cities – in deepening their collection of deposits among various geographical and social parts of their area of influence. An inquiry launched by the savings bank of Libourne (in Gironde)31 in 1920 among arrondissements gathering about the same amount of population showed that the density of savings books per one thousand inhabitants varied from simple to double; and that 31 arrondissements with a population lower than that of Libourne were

30 Cf. La Caisse d’épargne de Midi-Pyrénées, 1830-1996, Toulouse, Privat, 1996.

31 That inquiry had been studied by our Bordeaux student Stéphane Boyer: La Caisse d'épargne de Libourne (1914-1939), University of Bordeaux 3, 1996.

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more intensively prospected, which laid to some debate about the strategy to be followed thereafter.

Table 9. A comparison between the roots of savings banks among the population savings bank

ofpopulation of

the arrondissemen

t

number of savings books number of outletsper 1 000

inhabitantstotal

Besançon 107,003 590 63,175 23Troyes 110,757 514 56,957 24Niort 105,675 438 46,372 6Chartres 109,943 376 41,424 14Évreux 108,731 349 38,348 13Mâcon 100,579 321 32,375 8Meaux 104,049 285 29,739 12Laval 108,485 267 28,989 21Libourne 116,983 221 26,152 10Cherbourg 99,821 209 28,423 2

The result was quite in contradiction with the basic ideological

mottoes of French Republic, asserting equal right for citizens: not every citizen could got an easy access to a savings bank and it depended upon the dynamism of the savings bank of his locality. This explains the purpose of the state to fill in the gaps of these irregular networks. Whereas Germany launched its postal savings bank in 1938 only, the French state set up the Postal Savings Bank (Caisse nationale d’épargne) as soon as 1881: postal outlets were posed as key collectors of savings in rural areas – against Raiffeisen-type institutions (Crédit agricole mutuel) – or in popular town areas where savings banks were late to establish a branch. This move was reinforced by the creation in 1918 of a mere deposit account by postal outlets (Compte chèque postal or CCP) because the state felt intense needs to mobilise French savings to finance reconstruction and to service its own debt. The result of this competition was clear: Caisse nationale d’épargne collected in the 1930s two-thirds of the total amount gathered by savings banks. Accounts by Caisse nationale d’épargne grew from 6,4 million in 1913 to 12,7 million in 1945, overpassing then those of savings banks (12,6 million).

C. An institution without any global institutionalised existence

Savings banks flourished since the 1830s as an irresistible move but they didn’t try in fact to sketch a federative way of life: they kept a low profile as a community as local notabilities and authorities had rather keeping their complete independence far from the State intervention. Anybody feared a Paris intrusion into provincial life, which might respond to the strength of local elites

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among the « France des petits », that ideology being carried by rightist moderates or by leftist radicaux, that is the centerleft leading force in the 1890s-1930s. Only a Journal des Caisses d’épargne was set up in 1882 by a pioneer of savings banks evolution, Hippolyte Laurent; he convened a Congrès des Caisses d’épargne in 1883, as he favoured the gathering of skills, expertise and data as a way to consolidate the management and enlarge the way of life of each savings bank. But no regular meeting followed: a general convention of savings banks took place in 1911 and the second one occurred only in 1964… A High Commission was set up in 1895 and a Bureau central in 1906, but they kept a low profile as a mere desk of sharing data, a (light) pressure group among members of Parliament and civil servants, or a tool for propaganda among public opinion. Only in 1965-1969 did a National Union of savings banks appear… Conversely with Banques populaires or Crédit agricole, cooperative institutions dedicated the first one to middle-sized managers, the second to peasants, no central institution for savings banks was built up as a common tool; this prevented savings banks to launch a federal institutional force to scatter dynamic managerial methods, for instance.

D. A patchy archipelago deprived of its assets

Moreover the philosophy of savings banks led them to lose their key asset: their assets themselves. As their boards of directors and the authorities pleaded for a cautious way of management, growth and deposit collecting, as themselves were often frightened by a too rapid expansion, no collective mood could have gathered momentum… The state itself perceived that hesitation in front of ‘creating history’, of assuming the responsibility of expansion, management and strategy. This explains the task assumed by a state institution launched in 1816 to manage funds dedicated to durability (retirement funds, State values, etc.), Caisse des dépôts & consignations. Caisse des dépôts appeared more and more as the institution able to stabilise the evolution of equities for financial institutions (mutual social funds, retirement funds, etc.) because first the expertise of that assets manager was due to a keen relationship to the Stock Exchange; second because the state had posed as a principle the independence of its managers in order to erase remembering of the inflation years (1791-1799) of the Révolution period. Napoleon and his high civil servants promoted thus Caisse des dépôts as the cornerstone of that policy of re-establishing public trust, and the motto of Caisse des dépôts became in fact « public confidence » (“La Foi publique”). After a 1829 rule giving the responsibility of managing savings banks’ funds to the Treasury, Caisse des dépôts became rapidly the key manager: savings banks

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could use it since 1837, then they were obliged to do so since 1852 (up to now for the core business in fact, the management of what is presently called the ‘A-savings book’, that is a savings book which benefits from tax-avoidance but is limited to a certain amount)32. The state provided thus its solemn guarantee to savings banks deposits, whilst controls were set up to check Savings banks management. Savings banks became therefore a mere collecting institution, managing only liabilities and a very few assets (some buildings), as Caisse des dépôts managed almost all the assets.

The French savings banks system was quite different from the German one: since 1895 that latter had gained the right to manage availabilities, to offer credits to the savers, to become more and more local retail banks. French authorities rejected that solution in 1895: after an acute debate among the members of the boards of savings banks and among members of Parliament, the right to credit was refused to savings banks. Only savings banks in Alsace-Lorraine33 gained that right because the reattachment of this region to France in 1918 was accompanied by clauses intending to the respect of several specific ways of life, and savings banks autonomy and banking policy were some of them; but that “German model” was not extended elsewhere in France and the authorities tried to erect many limits to Alsatian-Lorrain savings banks’ specificity… They had gained in 1886, 1893 and 1912 (within Germany) the right to manage the amount of deposits by themselves or to lodge that money by the local Caisse des dépôts created in Strasbourg in 1871 – and then linked to the Paris Caisse des dépôts since 1925-1928 laws – and they kept these rights owing to laws in 1918, 1928 and 1935.

Caisse des dépôts was crowned therefore the key national institution34 for the management of the money collected by savings banks, but these ones had no part to the management of Caisse des dépôts, they did not get any representative on its board and their life was quite independent in fact – which might seem frustrating but was currently admitted up to the 1950s-1960s. The state and city authorities considered that savings banks had not to be developed too much and too rapidly because it would cause volatility to deposits and fragility to savings banks and to the municipalities

32 Jean-Marie Thiveaud (ed.), Du dépôt au dépositaire, Paris, Caisse des dépôts et consignations, 1998.

33 150e anniversaire de la Caisse d'épargne de Strasbourg, 1834-1984.34 Jean-Marie Thiveaud, Caisse des dépôts, 1816-1986. Dossiers Caisse

des dépôts, Paris, 1988. Roger Priouret, La Caisse des dépôts. Cent cinquante ans d’histoire financière, Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1966.

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supporting them through their guarantee. Since 1845 the state had thus imposed a ceiling to deposits for each savings book, and it was even lowered in 1895 (from 2,000 to 1,500 francs) and lagged behind inflation in the 1910s-1920s. The aim was not therefore to collect a maximal amount of savins but an optimal one, and not to transform savints banks into deposit banks but to keep their profile of a philanthropic instrument in favour of a “security” reserve for low and middle classes.

Thanks to the collection of savings transferred to Paris by savings banks, Caisse des dépôts could support the state to make ends meet when its treasury endured tense weekly or monthly deficits; it subscribed easily large amounts of state bonds. This explains why it became a key institutional investor on the Paris Stock Exchange, first as a key trader on state bonds: the centralisation of the savings banks’ money complied in fact with the centralisation habits in France (since absolute monarchy, the Napoleon period and the Jacobine trend prevailing mood among Republicans). From the Belle Époque (from the 1890s) and in the interwar, Caisse des dépôts asserted itself as a partner of local authorities’ investment owing to long term credits fostered by savings banks’ availabilities collected in Paris; from the end of the 1890s up to the start of the 1930s, it developed huge credits to social housing (for renting, in favour of habitations à bon marché, or HBM). Both policies gathered strong momentum in the 1950s-1960s as Caisse des dépôts became the banker of social housing and of local collective development and equipments. This mission missed thus to savings banks, deprived of any real direct part in financing local development, but for a meager slice of the market, because the Minjoz law of 1951 allowed them to lend to local authorities low amounts equivalent to a part of the yearly growth of their collection of savings, but under strict controls from the state and Caisse des dépôts. Conversely with German or Spanish savings banks, French savings banks could not act by themselves to finance local authorities; these latter had to use the intermediation of Caisse des dépôts, which asserted itself more and more, in the 1890s-1920s and especially from the 1950s, as a key banker to cities and départements.

E. Disparities in front of evolution or revolution (in the 1960-1970s)

When the challenges became finally obvious to savings banks in the 1950s-1960s, a large majority of members of the boards proved their conservative mood: becoming older and older as they kept their responsibilities quite up to their death or late retirement, as they were coopted by boards where influent people often constituted

22

familial dynasties, the notabilities proved themselves reluctant to fundamental changes. Whereas Crédit agricole emerged as a mass retail bank in the 1950s-1970s (even in cities), whereas classical banks began to prospect middle and lower classes in the 1960s, savings banks rejected any real evolution, to promote a new strategy which would change them from mere deposit collecting cashiers – in conformity with their name Caisses d’épargne et de prévoyance.

Philanthropic elites missed the revolution of the way of life, the desire of popular masses to take part to the affluent society revolution and to use consumers’ tools like credits or easy means of payment. Savings banks rejected thus the use of checks, of current accounts… State authorities and local notabilities waited a long time before accepting steps of evolution: current accounts (with checks) were launched by savings banks only in 1978… and it required a long time to transform savings banks into retail banking institutions35. These stages of evolution met a swap agreement, as savings banks had to share their new savings products and special loans with classical and cooperative banks – but they kept the monopoly of the special savings book (“A-book”) benefiting from a special rule avoiding taxation on interests’ revenues. A psychological revolution occurred in 1972 when the principle of “commercial development” was recognised and savings banks allowed to prospect fresh customers and to discover marketing methods… Numerous savings banks feared that this revolution would lead to the suppression of the State’s guarantee to deposits on the special savings books, which could shake most of these small companies… Many savings banks lagged behind the move towards modernisation; several historians and observers from inside the savings banks institutions themselves evoked « the fossilisation » of many savings banks, unable to assume the risks and the challenges of diversification.

F. Savings banks as actual banks (at the turn of the 21st century)

When the state (with the leftists in charge since the 1980s) decided to suppress the co-optation of members of the boards and to impose transparent elections, many boards protested vehemently and several resigned to proclaim their hostility to a revolutionary

35 Offer of mutual funds (SICAV) in 1966; creation of a second savings book without any cealing in 1965 (‘B-savings book’), special savings books for housing credits in 1966 (with the first loans in 1968) and more largely in 1969 (plans d’épargne logement), special housing loans in 1972-1978, personal loans in 1971, etc.

23

measure. Savings banks proved thus that change could not emerge from inside and had to be imposed by the state, through several studies and then laws between 1979 and 1991; they were followed by an amalgamation move (467 savings banks in 1983, 186 in 1990, 31 in 1991) and the emergence of real banking companies. Thereafter, a strategic alliance has been recently concluded with Caisse des dépôts; first, a strong commercial and investment bank, Eulia, in 2001-2002 was set up in common; second, the whole wholesale banking (investment and commercial banking) branch of Caisse des dépôts, which had been spun-off within a special subsidiary, CDC-Ixis, merged with the holding compagny of the savings banks group, CNCE, in 2004. While Caisse des dépôts focuses its development on activities linked with its “general interest” vocation in favour of financing housing and local authorities, its “market-oriented” sectors joined the savings banks group so as to build a new competitor to big banks, to provide savings banks with a bank and finance tool on the Paris market. Three ways are thus followed by European savings banks: the first consisted with a mere merger with classical banks (United Kingdom, Netherlands, Belgium); the second lays with regional savings banks acquiring a national scope (Spain, with dynamic Caixa; Germany, through the merger of the Landesbanken); the third has been shaped by the state, its public entities and the savings banks alongside the specific French “mixed economy” habits and favoured a national-sized entity which will compete with private banks.

Conclusion

One might deny that some kind of an enterprise strategy can be reconstituted throughout the history of French savings banks36. They depended heavily upon state legislation which limited drastically the field of their activities; elites’ mentalities hindered them to move and enlarge their compass; they were intimately linked with philanthropic and ideologies which deprived them of a real ‘enterprise culture’ in profit to the respect of social-liberal mentalities and confined them in the role of a tool of foresightedness among masses rather than a contributor to the creation of wealth and services; it was only a tool among others (poor or elder people hospices; charity associations; mutual social funds; paternalistic investments by companies; etc.) within the range of tools used to alleviate social tensions causes by the industrial revolutions or urbanisation37. They ended anyway by piling up some capital of

36 Laure de Llamby, Les métamorphoses de l’épargne, Paris, Gallimard, 2003.

37 Daniel Duet, Les Caisses d’épargne, Paris, Que Sais-Je? series, Presses universitaires de France, Paris, 1991, reedited in 2000.

24

expertise: they got access to a close knowledge of mass customers, they were accustomed to relationship with local authorities38 (cities, départements); owing to their meagre own reserves they had financed several social institutions (social houses, vegetable gardens for labourers, public baths, etc.). A somehow conservative way of management, concerned with costs saving, helped them to set up administrative and accounting methods, then punch cards and computing systems, which proved more and more efficient to face the growth of accounts. One might even pretend that this very mutualised computer equipment helped the hundreds of small savings banks to stay alive conversely with their British counterparts39. One could think too that the centralising part assumed by Caisse des dépôts prevented French savings banks from disappearing as they could be protected by the skills of that Paris institution able to manage keenly savings banks assets as Caisse des dépôts’ teams of assets management proved able to be competitive with those of commercial and investment banks in the 1970s-1990s. That insertion within the grip of Caisse des dépôts prevented them from a slow move towards death as it occurred because of bankruptcies in the United States in the 1980s or even in the Netherlands40 or in Italy because of integration within commercial banks.

The function of Caisse des dépôts itself had deeply changed since the 1950s. Up to that times it might appear as a way of immobilising savings banks’ funds far from local interests as a majority of Caisse des dépôts’ activities were earmarked to public or semi-public bonds or the participation to the Paris Stock Exchange. But a dualist more occurred then: whilst savings banks lost their social function because a Social Security system had been built in the 1930s-1950s and because the economic revolution led to such a growth of the standard of life, of incomes and of savings capacity, Caisse des dépôts41, using the money collected by savings banks, became the first financier and banker of social housing, local collective

38 All the more that since the Minjoz law in 1950 savings banks began to set up directly credits to local entities. Cf. Maylis Dubarry, Les relations de la Caisse d’épargne Aquitaine-Nord avec les collectivités locales depuis l’application de la loi Minjoz (de 1950 à nos jours), Dissertation at Institut d’études politiques de Bordeaux, 1999.

39 A.R.B. Haldane, One hundred and fifty years of Trustee Savings Bank, 1960. Michael Moss & Iain Russell, An invaluable treasure: a history of the TSB, London, 1994.

40 The 250-300 savings banks in the Netherlands stumbled in the 1970s as they did not invest collectively into computer systems and remained only 100 in 1976, the surviving ones joining the Fortis group in the 1990s.

25

equipment, etc. The state kept in mind therefore the safeguard of savings banks as it needed them to collect the funds required to sustain Caisse des dépôts’ investments and credits, as savings banks played a key role in that social and local modernisation trend. The originality of Caisse des dépôts – as France public system was the only one equipped with thus a centralised institution, perhaps with Canada, Portugal or Italy – helped sustain the global mission of savings banks, which the state could not leave all by themselves and fixed gradual steps towards revolutionary changes, even in the 1980s-1990s. savings banks did not reach any ‘enterprise’ culture, management, strategy before the end of the twentieth century; but they became a cornerstone of a global economic and social strategy intending to modernise rapidly and intensively France’s local collective structures.

Globally, the history of French savings banks might seem a disappointing business history because they practiced little “business” indeed... The German or the Spanish “model” of savings banks was of no use for France until the 1980s-1990s when it was celebrated as an objective within the large reshuffling of the French banking sector. Conversely with their neighbours, French savings banks could not distribute credit even to local authorities; they could only grant subsidies to philanthropic entities or associations. They did not act as “local banks” and this absence does explain the large number, the strength and the perennity (up to the 1930s-1950s) of the “local banks” in many French provinces – in particular close to the Pyrénées42 – where they assumed th task of financing professionals and small & middle sized business43 in parallel with the

41 Alya Aglan, Michel Margairaz & Philippe Verheyde (eds.), La Caisse des dépôts et consignations, la Seconde Guerre mondiale et le XXe siècle, Paris, Albin Michel, 2003.

42 Jean-Pierre Allinne, Banque Pouyanne. Histoires d’entrepreneurs, 1903-2003, Orthez, Éditions Gascogne, 2003

43 Michel Lescure & Alain Plessis (eds.), Banques locales et banques régionales en France au 19e siècle, Paris, Albin Michel, Mission historique de la Banque de France, 1999. H. Bonin, in « The demand for banking deconcentration in France, 1900-1997 : a recurrent endeavour to alleviate big banks’ hegemony », in Manfred Pohl, Teresa Tortella & Herman Van der Wee, A century of banking consolidation in Europe. The history and archives of mergers & acqusitions, Aldershot UK, Ashgate, 2001, pages 213-235. H. Bonin, Les banques françaises de l’entre-deux-guerres, Paris, P.L.A.G.E, 2000. H. Bonin, « Les banquiers grenoblois des années 1890-1940 : un modèle spécifique ? », in Hervé Joly (et alii) (eds.), Des barrages, des usines et des hommes. L’industrialisation des Alpes du Nord entre ressources locales et apports extérieurs. Études offertes au professeur Henri Morsel, Grenoble, Presses universitaires de Grenoble, 2002, pages 185-209.

26

branches of Paris banks. One could even follow the interwar liberal ideologues which favoured somehow such a limited scope of savins banks as their cash collection could help Caisse des dépôts finance the state’s needs and thus freed the money market of a too heavy punction because firms could rely on banks for their own needs as the state disposed of such a large source of indirect financing. But from the 1990s French savings banks have started a stringent change and have joined cooperative institutions (Crédit agricole, Crédit mutuel, Banques populaires) as key actors of local economy and development, whilst establishing a real bank and finance group in Paris: the German and Spanish “model” is triumphing a century later than in Germany and Spain.

Notes:

27