| World Savings and Retail Banks Institute | |
| Abbreviation: | WSBI |
| Founder: | Banks at the first International Thrift Congress in Milan |
| Founding Location: | Milan, Italy |
| Type: | Nonprofit |
| Status: | Trade association |
| Purpose: | Global representative of savings banks |
| Location City: | Brussels |
| Location Country: | Belgium |
| Region Served: | Worldwide |
| Membership: | 91 |
| Membership Year: | 2024 |
| Language: | English |
| Affiliations: | European Savings and Retail Banks Group |
The World Savings and Retail Banking Institute is an international banking association. It has nearly 100 members in 80 countries around the world, representing approximately 6,760 savings and retail banks.[1]
WSBI is the global representative of its members, typically savings and retail banks or association thereof, and fosters cooperation between them. An important area of work is financial inclusion, where the organisation has worked with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Mastercard Foundation.[2] [3] [4]
It shares a common secretariat and office with the European Savings and Retail Banks Group in Brussels.
WSBI was founded 1924 at the occasion of the First International Thrift Congress in Milan. Until the Second World War the headquarters of the International Savings Banks Institute remained in Milan. But since Milan had suffered from heavy bombings during the war the Institute moved to Amsterdam in 1948.
In 1963, WSBI's sister organization, the 'Savings Banks Group of the European Economic Community' was created to represent European Savings Banks from the merging European markets. This institution was renamed European Savings and Retail Banks Group in 1988 and was renamed to European Savings and Retail Banking Group in 2013
The International Savings Banks Institute was again relocated in 1969, this time to Geneva where it remained until 1994 when it was dissolved. In its place, a newly created World Savings Banks Institute (WSBI) was established in Brussels on 9 June 1994. Since then they have changed their name to the World Savings and Retail Banking Institute and the European Savings and Retail Banking Group (WSBI-ESBG), and continue to operate under a common secretariat located in Brussels.