The savings bank of 1833 and the Banca Cantonale Ticinese

A savings bank for the treasury

The first financial institution of the canton was the Cassa Ticinese di Risparmio, founded in 1833. Its archive, now kept in the municipal archive of Locarno, contains the account books of its offices in Locarno, Lugano, Bellinzona and Mendrisio together with the correspondence and documents of its foundation.¹ The savings bank belonged to the movement of public-utility savings banks that spread through Switzerland in the first half of the nineteenth century. By 1850 the country had about 150 such institutions, which together held half of the balance sheet total of all 181 Swiss financial institutions of the time. Municipalities and cantons often founded them or supported them with guarantees and endowment capital, while notables managed them on an honorary basis. Their original clients were small savers, to whom they paid interest at rates that fell as deposits grew. Their lending was confined to mortgages.²

The Ticinese savings bank had a particular purpose. According to Pietro Nosetti, whose study of the Ticinese banking sector from 1861 to 1939 is the standard modern account, the Cassa was essentially limited to channelling savings into the finances of the canton.³ The young canton, whose budget was chronically short of money for roads, schools and the administration, used the deposits of its citizens as a source of credit. The savings bank thus combined two functions that later Swiss law would separate: it collected deposits from the public and lent them to the public authority that sponsored it. Its connection with the Società ticinese di utilità pubblica, the reforming association in which Franscini and other liberals were active, appears in the reference that the Locarno archive makes to the papers of that society.⁴ The savings bank was an instrument of liberal state-building whose clients were exposed to the fortunes of the cantonal treasury.

The decree of 8 June 1858

In the 1850s the liberal government decided to replace the savings bank with a full commercial bank. By legislative decree of 8 June 1858 the Grand Council authorized the creation of the Banca Cantonale Ticinese as a joint-stock company with a capital of CHF 1 million, divided into 5,000 shares of 200 francs each. The State subscribed 1,000 shares, a fifth of the capital. The founding decree granted the bank an exemption from all taxes for thirty years and obliged it to take over the management of the cantonal savings bank, including its liabilities.⁵ The bank received the exclusive banking privilege for its whole duration, the right to issue banknotes that all public treasuries of the canton had to accept at their nominal value, as well as the right to conduct cash operations for the State, public institutions and private persons. The government appointed a representative to its board of directors. For the first five years, the State undertook to support the bank with up to CHF 500,000 if an extraordinary wave of note redemptions threatened its liquidity.⁶

The bank's statutes provided in Article 108 that disputes of private law between the government and the bank were to be decided by an arbitral tribunal of three members.⁷ The Cassa di Risparmio was absorbed into the new institution in 1858, while the bank began operating in Bellinzona in 1861.⁸ The dates differ in the sources because the foundation of the company, its entry in the official registers and the opening of business occurred in different years: the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland gives 1858, the Swiss diplomatic documents database 1859 and Nosetti 1861 for the beginning of activity as the first modern bank of the canton.⁹

Notes

1. Archivio comunale di Locarno, fondo AB.2 "Cassa di Risparmio" (1833–1858), description in the Swiss economic archives database, https://ub-archeco24.ub.unibas.ch/index.php/cassa-di-risparmio (account books of the offices in Locarno, Lugano, Bellinzona and Mendrisio; 75 volumes). ↩
2. Peter Püntener, "Casse di risparmio", in DSS, version of 13 February 2012, https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/it/articles/014063/. ↩
3. Pietro Nosetti, "Le secteur bancaire tessinois: origines, crises et transformations", paper for the 3rd Swiss Historical Days, Fribourg, 7–9 February 2013, https://infoclio.ch/sites/default/files/standard_page/nosetti2013.pdf. The book version is Pietro Nosetti, Le secteur bancaire tessinois. Origines, crises et transformations (1861–1939) (Alphil, series "Culture, savoirs et patrimoine"), ISBN 978-2-88930-177-5; extract at https://www.unifr.ch/alumni/de/assets/public/Alumni/pdf/livre_pietro_nosetti_banques_tessino ises.pdf. ↩
4. Description of fondo AB.2 (as above), which refers to the documents of the Società ticinese di utilità pubblica. Marcacci, "Franscini, Stefano" (as above), records that Franscini promoted several civic and philanthropic associations but does not name this society. ↩
5. Federal Court, judgment of 7 February 1885, Banca cantonale ticinese c. Cantone Ticino, BGE 11, https://www.servat.unibe.ch/dfr/pdf/c1011090.pdf. ↩
6. Federal Court, judgment of 11 November 1892, Banca cantonale ticinese c. Cantone Ticino, BGE 18 No. 146, https://www.servat.unibe.ch/dfr/pdf/c1018956.pdf (summary of the privileges and of the statutes). ↩
7. BGE 18 No. 146 (as above). ↩
8. Description of fondo AB.2 (as above): "La Cassa di Risparmio fu assorbita nel 1858 dalla Banca cantonale ticinese"; Nosetti 2013 (as above) for 1861. ↩
9. Yves Froidevaux, "Banche cantonali", in DSS, version of 8 April 2015, https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/it/articles/014065/ (Ticino, 1858); Dodis, "Banca cantonale ticinese", https://dodis.ch/R23215 (founded 1859, dissolved 1914); Nosetti 2013 (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.