The World Savings and Retail Banking Institute is an international banking association. It has 99 members in 76 countries, representing over 6,400 savings and retail banks that serve in total 1.7 billion customers across the world. [1]
WSBI is the world's oldest and largest global banking association, representing, advising and connecting retail banks around the world. 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.
Activities
Focusing on topics of global importance affecting the banking industry, WSBI represents the interests of its members towards international policy makers and standard setters on the main regulatory and other issues, promotes a vision for a pluralistic banking model, and supports financial inclusion. WSBI also brings together members to exchange knowledge at an international level.
Scale2Save is WSBI’s Development Finance Practice, which assists financial service providers in providing better opportunities to vulnerable people, in areas such as micro and small rural enterprise and farm business support services, including climate-resilient and gender inclusion financial products, better access to digital financial services, and cash-in-cash-out solutions. [5]
The organization publishes every year a comprehensive report about its members' contributions to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, featuring data-driven evidence and case studies of banking initiatives towards an inclusive, sustainable, and resilient future. In 2025, WSBI-ESBG launched the SDG Awards Ceremony, honoring the best practices in six categories: Inclusive Banking & Social Impact, Economic Growth & Empowerment, Digital Transformation & Technological Innovation, Climate Finance, Customer Education, and Consumer Protection. [6]
To promote the importance of savings and honor the memory of Filippo Ravizza and the First International Thrift Congress in Milan in 1924, WSBI launches every year its World Savings Day campaign. The 2025 edition, which started in the spring and culminated on 31 October, aimed to challenge the traditional perception of savings, focusing on its symbolic meaning in people's lives, suggesting: "This is not a savings account. It’s far greater than this." [7]
In 2025, WSBI launched the first edition of the Social Week campaign to showcase how locally rooted financial institutions contribute to inclusion, sustainability, and community well-being in their communities and, as a direct consequence, around the world. During the Social Week in September, WSBI member banks organized activities in their respective countries centered around financial education and empowerment, community engagement and social inclusion, environmental sustainability, and empowerment and equality.
History
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.
On 30-31 October 2024, WSBI celebrated its 100th anniversary with a landmark World Congress in Rome, Italy. For the occasion, the organization published the book 100 years WSBI that presents the history and the main achievements of the world's oldest and largest global banking association. [8]
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