In German-speaking jurisdictions, Landesbank (plural ), , refers to a category of public sector banks that are owned by one or more of the Länder (federated internally self-governing states). Institutions of this type exist in most German states, as well as Austria and Switzerland.
In the Austro-Hungarian Empire under the rule of the Habsburg monarchy, were government-sponsored banks established in some of the kingdoms and lands of the crown:
By contrast, Vienna's Länderbank (est. 1880) and its short-lived affiliate the (1881-1887) were private-sector initiatives. The name Landesbank also survives in regional entities of the cooperative Raiffeisen Group in Austria and, similarly, the Raiffeisen Landesbank Südtirol â Cassa Centrale Raiffeisen dell'Alto Adige in the Italian region of South Tyrol.
The current are part of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, one of the three pillars of Germany's banking system. Their business is predominantly wholesale banking, partly to serve local savings banks (). With a few exceptions, Landesbanken and Sparkassen are chartered by national and state banking laws to pursue a public purpose (). As of late 2022, they are:
Four other German institutions are named without playing the role of the above five within the public sector:
The German name of the National Bank of Liechtenstein is .