People quickly forget dates and events, but melodies often stick in their ears for the rest of their lives.

In this respect, the journey through the 200-year history of the Frankfurter Sparkasse could not have been designed better than the students of the University of Music and Performing Arts did: with a medley from 200 years of music history.

And there was the song “Am Brunnen in front of the gates” at the beginning, for which the text was written in 1822 – the year the savings bank was founded.

Daniel Schleidt

Coordinator of the economics department in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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A lot has changed since then, and this change was also the focus of the ceremony on Friday in the Gesellschaftshaus in Frankfurt's Palmengarten.

Because while cabs still dominated the cityscape in Frankfurt when the first branch of the public-law institute opened, banking transactions are now increasingly being processed digitally.

"The world has changed, and so have the savings banks," said Fraspa's CEO, Ingo Wiedemeier, to the guests from politics, business and culture.

First bank with adding machine

Helaba board member Thomas Groß, as head of the board of directors of the Sparkasse, which belongs to the Hessische Landesbank, took up the thread and, in view of the current uncertain times, recalled that Frankfurt and his Sparkasse had repeatedly weathered difficult times over the past two centuries, but were strengthened as a result had emerged.

Around 1866, when Frankfurt was occupied by Prussian troops and feared that it would become a provincial city - but then, as Groß recalled, it flourished.

Fraspa has always responded to change.

Just like in 1911, when it was the first bank to introduce the adding machine;

or 1963, when a computer heralded the end of punch cards.

The President of the Savings Banks and Giro Association of Hesse-Thuringia, Stefan Reuss, praised the takeover of the bank by Helaba, which took place during a crisis in 2005, as a stronger result, even if the structure in which a savings bank is integrated into a state bank was not is the ideal image.

After all, this solution was better than privatization, after all, the three-pillar model made up of private, cooperative and public-law banks in Germany is so tried and tested that it also has to be defended against interventions by European legislation, according to Reuss.

Economics Minister Tarek Al-Wazir (Greens) also praised this model because it guarantees Germans diversity and proximity to financial services.

With 1,700 employees, the savings bank is an important employer and maintains the basic idea of ​​banks: to shape the money cycle for the benefit of people and to stand by them.

As described in the song that the student choir also sang: "A friend, a good friend".