The World Savings Day was established on October 31^st 1924 during the 1st International Savings Bank

Savings bank

A savings bank is a financial institution whose primary purpose is accepting savings deposits. It may also perform some other functions.In Europe, savings banks originated in the 19th or sometimes even the 18th century. Their original objective was to provide easily accessible savings products to...

 Congress (World Society of Savings Banks) in Milano, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. The Italian Professor Filippo Ravizza declared this day the "International Saving Day" on the last day of the congress. In the resolutions of the Thrift Congress it was decided that ‘World Thrift Day’ should be a day devoted to the promotion of savings all over the World. In their efforts to promote thrift the savings banks also worked with the support of the schools, the clergy, as well as cultural, sports, professional, and women’s associations.

Representatives of 29 countries wanted to bring to mind the thought of saving to the worldwide public and its relevance to the economy

Economy

An economy consists of the economic system of a country or other area; the labor, capital and land resources; and the manufacturing, trade, distribution, and consumption of goods and services of that area...

 and the individual. The World Savings Day is usually held on October 31^st except in countries where this day is a public holiday, since the idea is for the banks to be open, so that the people are able to transfer their savings into their account.

The idea of World Thrift Day was not born out of nothing. There had been some examples of days that were committed to the idea of saving money in order to gain a higher standard of life and to secure the economy, for example in Spain where the first national thrift day was celebrated in 1921, or in the United States. In other countries, such as Germany, the peoples’ confidence in savings had to be restored since many of them had lost their savings in the German monetary reform of 1923.

After the Second World War, World Thrift Day continued and reached the peak of its popularity in the years between 1955 and 1970. It practically became a veritable tradition in certain countries. In Austria, for instance, the official mascot of saving, the so-called 'Sparefroh' (literally: ‘Happy Saver’, or rather "save happily!") reached a higher degree of brand awareness than the republic’s President and even a street was named after him. In the 1970s the ‘Sparefroh-Journal’, an educational magazine for younger people, reached a circulation of 400,000 copies.

Nowadays the focus of the banks that organise the World Savings Day is on developing countries, where many people are unbanked. Savings banks play an important role in enhancing savings in these countries with certain campaigns and initiatives such as working with non governmental organisations in order to double the number of savings accounts held by the poor.

Trivia

• Today, many people forget World Savings Day because it collides with Halloween
  Halloween
  Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...
  
  .
• In Germany
  Germany
  Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
  
   World Savings Day is held on the last business day before October 31^st since this is a public holiday in some States
  States of Germany
  Germany is made up of sixteen which are partly sovereign constituent states of the Federal Republic of Germany. Land literally translates as "country", and constitutionally speaking, they are constituent countries...
  
   (Reformation Day
  Reformation Day
  Reformation Day is a religious holiday celebrated on October 31 in remembrance of the Reformation, particularly by Lutheran and some Reformed church communities...
  
  ).

Weblinks

Homepage of the World Savings Banks Institute on the World Savings Day