When Banking met Education. The International Savings Banks Institute as a Hub for the Dissemination of Economic Knowledge in the 20th Century

Financial literacy education is experiencing a boom. Actors within the fields of educational, economic, and social policy have been developing a profusion of learning tools, measuring educational achievements, or producing teaching material. This financial literacy education boom is, contrary to current perception, not a historical exception. Historically spoken, one type of actor stands out regarding its activities related to the difussion of economic knowledge, especially that related to children and youth: the savings banks and the national and international savings banks associations.
This study will take the foundation and the development of the International Thrift Institute / International Savings Banks Institute (ISBI) as a probe for the examination of the circulation of economic knowledge in the 20th century. To achieve this goal, this paper will develop a twofold perspective on the interface between savings banks and educational practices, asking: what role did educational practices play for the development of savings banks? How important were savings banks for the development of economic education?
The paper is based on comprehensive archival research primarily in the archive of the former ISBI in Brussels, complemented by several national associations’ archives. It will outline the historical development of the ISBI’s children and youth activities and follow the circulation of educational means and practices within different savings banks associations. To achieve this, the documentary analysis of different savings banks association archives will be complemented with a systematic analysis of the ISBI’s main organ of communication, the journal World Thrift.
The paper will show that, despite the very different structural developments of savings banks organizations, their educational self-conception can be understood as a main common ground for their mutual collaboration. This applies in particular to periods of economic and organizational uncertainty regarding future developments. With the promotion of the world savings day, the circulation of children’s and youth journals, the establishment of savings clubs and special (school) savings schemes, the provision of teaching material, training and further education offers, or the supply of fora for political and scientific exchange, savings banks contributed to shaping the general understanding and the perception of capitalist economies. But, despite the importance of pedagogical activities for the savings banks’ self-image, no general educational program and no unité de doctrine could be developed, although several suggestions and models were continuously exchanged and discussed, and the ISBI’s role concerning the definition of an economic educational policy remained precarious. Educational ideas and practices remained tightly bound to the national needs of each association, or even the local needs and traditions of the individual savings banks. These differences may partly be a consequence of the diverging organizational structures of each association and their savings banks, but they also highlight the importance of personal interests and skills of the actors engaged in educational issues and the networks they established, as well as regionally uneven societal and cultural trends and developments. This unequal priorities in the content and organization of economic education is not only the consequence of different economic and institutional structures, but it is culturally bound. It reflects and stabilizes what Münnich and Sachweh have called the “variety of capitalist spirits”.
Understanding the development of economic knowledge also involves investigating the rise of other actors seeking to wrest influence over general economic education activities from the savings banks. Economic education lost its role as a common ground of communication between the savings banks’ associations due to the reduction of its scope to issues mainly related to money management, and the justification provided for this – the aim of developing long-term costumer loyalty. This picture of savings banks activities makes it clear how a history of economic education as a crucial element of the history of market economies cannot be written without taking private associations and interest groups into account.