A bank of the State and the arrival of the big banks

The decree of 1914 and the law of 6 May 1915

The canton's answer to the crash was a bank that it owned and guaranteed. The legislative decree of 19 January 1914, adopted while the Credito Ticinese was in bankruptcy and the Banca Cantonale Ticinese was failing, opened the way. The law of 6 May 1915 then established the Banca dello Stato del Cantone Ticino, which began operating in the same year.¹ The Associazione Bancaria Ticinese describes the new institution as an autonomous foundation of public law and its creation as a decisive development in the history of Ticinese banking.² The Historical Dictionary of Switzerland places the change in a broader movement: several of the mixed cantonal banks of the first generation were transformed into, or replaced by, pure State banks around the turn of the century, and Ticino followed this path in 1915.³

The choice of name was deliberate. The parliamentary committee that reported on the revision of the bank's law in 2003 explained that the bank was called "Banca dello Stato" in order to distinguish it from the failed banks that had carried the name "cantonale". All other cantonal banks of Switzerland bear the name Kantonalbank, Banque cantonale or Banca cantonale, so that the Ticinese name remains a permanent reminder of 1914.⁴ The same report records the reasoning of the cantonal government at the time: several private banks had failed almost simultaneously, causing heavy losses to Ticinese clients. In the government's words, the consequences of these disasters would reach the economy of the whole State.⁵ The sentence summarizes the political lesson of the crash. A banking failure on that scale was a public matter. The State could no longer leave the safety of savings to private institutions without a guarantee.

Features of the new bank

The bank of 1915 differed from the Banca Cantonale Ticinese of 1858 in three respects. It was a public law institution wholly owned by the canton, with no private shareholders whose interests could diverge from those of the depositors. Its liabilities were guaranteed by the State, so that depositors no longer depended on the quality of the bank's loans. Its governance was placed under the Grand Council and the cantonal government, which appointed its organs and approved its accounts. The law of 1988 defines the bank's purpose as the promotion of the economic development of the canton and adds that the bank enables the public to invest its savings securely and profitably.⁶ In the spring of 1916 the new bank joined the association of Swiss cantonal banks, which completed its integration into the national system of cantonal banking.⁷

The bank was conceived as a mortgage and savings bank with commercial activities. Its business consisted of taking savings deposits, granting mortgages on Ticinese real estate and lending to municipalities, artisans and local enterprises. It did not engage in the foreign lending that had ruined its predecessors. When the Swiss National Bank reopened its Bellinzona agency on 15 April 1920, it entrusted the agency to the Banca dello Stato.⁸ The State bank thus inherited the function that the Banca Cantonale Ticinese had lost in February 1914. It also became the institution through which the canton's own finances passed, as the savings bank of 1833 had been in its time.

Notes

1. Rapporto n. 5117 R / 5117A R (as above); Legge sulla Banca dello Stato del Cantone Ticino of 25 October 1988, RL 960.100 (as above), Art. 43 (repeal of "la legge del 6 maggio 1915 e successive modifiche"). ↩
2. Associazione Bancaria Ticinese, "Cenni storici" (as above): "La nascita nel 1915 della Banca dello Stato, una fondazione autonoma di diritto pubblico". ↩
3. Froidevaux, "Banche cantonali" (as above). ↩
4. Rapporto n. 5117 R / 5117A R (as above): "La Banca, per distinguersi da quelle fallite che portavano la denominazione 'cantonale', venne chiamata Banca dello Stato, a differenza di tutti gli altri istituti simili degli altri cantoni". ↩
5. Rapporto n. 5117 R / 5117A R (as above). ↩
6. Legge sulla Banca dello Stato del Cantone Ticino (as above), Art. 3: "La Banca ha lo scopo di favorire lo sviluppo economico del Cantone." The purpose clause of the law of 6 May 1915 was not available. ↩
7. Statistical Bureau of the Swiss National Bank, "Das schweizerische Bankwesen in den Jahren 1914 und 1915" (as above): "Seit dem Frühjahr 1916 gehört die Tessiner Staatsbank dem Verbande an." ↩
8. Swiss National Bank, Geschäftsbericht 1920 (as above). ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of August 2025.