WestLB

Background

WestLB's origins go back to an unusual initiative of the Swedish government, which in 1818 offered 160,000 taler to the Prussianprovince of Westphalia as reparation for damages inflicted by Swedish and Dutch forces during the Napoleonic Wars. Prussian statesman Karl von Vincke declared that sum the property of all Westphalia to be used for economic development and infrastructure. The Westphalian Provinzialbank-Hülfskasse (lit. 'Westphalian Provincial Bank and Support Fund') was established for that purpose in Münster in 1832, sometimes referred to as the first-ever Landesbank. This in turn inspired the creation of a similar institution in the neighboring Prussian Rhine Province, the Rheinische Provinzial-Hülfskasse founded in Cologne in 1854 and relocated in Düsseldorf in 1877. The two provincial banks played a significant role in the dynamic industrial development of the Rhineland and Westphalia until World War I. They were renamed Landesbank der Provinz Westfalen and Landesbank der Rheinprovinz in 1890 and 1888 respectively.