State Bank of the Russian Empire

After an extended gap during the era of war communism, it was eventually revived in Russia as the Soviet Gosbank in October 1921, whereas other organizations took central banking roles in newly independent Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, as well as Bessarabia within Greater Romania.

[6][7] According to the statutes, the State Bank was intended for short-term credit (no more than 9 months) to trade and industry as well as a monetary role.

By decree of Alexander II of June 2, 1867, the State Bank and its offices were granted the right to accept specie for payments.

All liquidation operations were to be carried out at the expense of the State Treasury, which, if necessary, was to provide the bank, in addition to its initial capital, with cash or its interest-bearing obligations with the right to sell them on the stock exchange.

Instead, it could only issue banknotes at the order of the finance ministry, which was therefore effectively in charge of Russia's monetary policy until the reforms of the 1890s.

[citation needed] On June 6, 1894, Finance Minister Sergei Witte initiated reform of the State Bank with the adoption of a new charter that directed it to more intensive lending to trade and industry, especially agriculture.

The State Bank's discounting operation was extended to bills issued for commercial and industrial purposes, while their term was increased to 12 months.

[8] The growth of commercial operations in the State Bank, which began a year before the adoption of the new charter, was short-lived and ended in 1896.

[citation needed] Witte started a new cycle of monetary reform just a year after the new charter, the highlight of which was Russia's adoption of the gold standard in 1897.

At the beginning of 1895, Russia's gold reserves amounted to 911.6 million rubles; stabilization of the market exchange rate occurred in 1893-1895.

29 August] 1897 granted the State Bank a formal monopoly over note issuance in the Russian Empire while preserving its capacity to engage in ordinary lending.

"[citation needed] The State Bank was primarily directed to ensure the stability of the new monetary system, and subsequently was very restrained in its lending and credit activity despite the permissive provisions of the 1894 charter in that area.

[citation needed] Operations with government securities developed significantly during that period, with a volume several times greater than the bank's own capital.

The Ministry of Finance and the State Bank actively intervened in the markets to maintain the exchange rate of government securities and the "credit ruble".

From the late 1890s, market intervention and significant investments in securities have also been used to counteract the fall in industrial and banking stock prices.

[citation needed] The crisis intervention resulted in the expansion of the State Bank's balance sheet, partly reversing the monetary reform of the late 1890s.

Mass political rallies and strikes at the end of 1905, in which employees of the State Bank also took part, caused the departure of French bankers from St. Petersburg, who had come there to negotiate the next loan.

[citation needed] With the participation of the State Bank, a system of small credit institutions for lending to cooperatives, artisans and peasants was created in the country.

In 1904, the Bank created the Office for Small Loans, which was supposed to monitor the activities of institutions of this type and provide them with financial assistance if necessary.

Until the First World War, Russian financial policy extremely valued the preservation of gold currency as the basis of external government credit, largely from France.

The state budget deficit in 1916 reached 13.8 billion rubles, of which 29 percent was covered by the issuance of paper money.

By the February Revolution in 1917, the ruble on the domestic market had depreciated almost fourfold, its purchasing power being 26-27 pre-war kopecks.

In August and September, that "money famine" took on the character of a crisis due to the seasonal expansion of trade turnover.

In reaction, the Provisional Government allowed a number of securities into circulation as legal tender and began issuing banknotes of a simplified type, namely money stamps.

This started a process of disintegration of Russia's previously unified monetary system, which intensified the general disorganization and contributed to a further increase in inflation.

It immediately opened its branches in Arkhangelsk, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Moscow, Odesa, Riga, Rostov-on-Don, and Yekaterinburg.

In June 1864, 12 more branches of the State Bank were opened in Astrakhan, Chișinău, Ekaterinoslav, Kazan, Penza, Ryazan, Samara, Saratov, Tambov, Vladimir, Voronezh, and Yaroslavl.

By the beginning of 1917, the State Bank included 11 main branches, 133 permanent and 5 temporary offices, 42 agencies at granaries.

[citation needed] In Russia, the former head office was repurposed in the 1930s as the Saint Petersburg State University of Economics, but most of the other surviving State Bank buildings are still used by the Central Bank of Russia, including the former Moscow branch for its head office.

Other former State Bank branch buildings have been put to different uses, such as the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences in Vilnius or the Nikanor Onatsky Regional Art Museum in Sumy, Ukraine.