The history of Volksbank is connected to the growth of cooperative banking in Germany. A long time ago, in the 1800s, many regular people and small businesses had a hard time getting affordable money. To help, people started working together by creating groups called cooperatives.
These groups allowed members to share resources and help each other with money needs. Some important people, like Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch and Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen, helped start these cooperative banks.
Schulze-Delitzsch worked mostly with city craftsmen and communities, while Raiffeisen focused on helping farmers and people in the countryside. The main idea was mutual support—members helped each other instead of relying only on outside investors. Over the years, these cooperative banks grew and became a big part of Germany’s money system.
Many small banks were created to serve local communities, and some joined together to form larger groups. The name Volksbank became a common name for these friendly banks that help individuals, families, and small businesses.
But Volksbank is not just one bank; many different local banks use this name. In the 1900s, Volksbanken started offering more kinds of financial services, like mortgages, investment options, and payment services. New technology changed banking even more. Computers made work easier behind the scenes.
ATMs let people take out cash without going inside. Later, online banking let customers manage their accounts from home. Then, mobile phones made it possible to do banking activities anytime, anywhere. Even with all these changes, the idea of cooperation and helping each other remains important to Volksbank.
This special relationship between the bank and its members makes cooperative banking different from other types of banks. The story of Volksbank shows how banks can change and improve while still sticking to their original goal of helping people.
