Gosbank

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gosbank (Russian: Госбанк, Государственный банк СССР, Gosudarstvenny bank SSSR—the USSR State Bank) was the central bank of the Soviet Union and the only bank from the 1930s until 1987. The Gosbank was one of three economic authorities in Russia, the other two being Gosplan (State Planning Committee) and Gossnab (State Committee for Material Technical Supply).

Gosbank did not act as a commercial bank in the sense understood in the West. In theory it acted as an instrument for government policy. Instead of independently and impartially assessing the creditworthiness of the borrower, Gosbank provided loan funds to "favored individuals, groups and industries" as directed by the central government. ^[1]

The Soviet state also used Gosbank as a tool to impose central control on industry, using bank balances and transaction histories to monitor the activity of individual concerns and their compliance with Plans and directives.

As the Soviet Union neared collapse, and as part of Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika program, other banks were formed including Promstroybank (USSR Bank of Industrial Construction), Zhilstoybank(USSR Bank of Residential Construction), Agrobank (USSR Agricultural Bank), Vneshekonombank (USSR Foreign Trade Bank), and Sberbank (USSR Savings Bank). Sberbank continues to this day as one of Russia's largest banks, retaining senior Gosbank personnel and most government banking business.