Bank archives have significance in that they enable us to review the history of domestic society and economy as well as the bank's developments. Moreover, the systematic management of customer information and management-related archives is helpful in ...
Bank archives have significance in that they enable us to review the history of domestic society and economy as well as the bank's developments. Moreover, the systematic management of customer information and management-related archives is helpful in heightening the credibility from customers and thus promoting the efficiency of management.
In this context, this study aims to present the need of study on schemes for bank archives management on a larger perspective of governance and, ultimately, the introduction of 'Bank Archives'. This study analyze the cases in the United Kingdom and the domestic situation, on which the directions for archives management are sought to serve to a bank's internal and external affairs.
Bank archives in the UK can be largely divided into three categories: the first relating to a bank's internal affairs, the second covering the activities of its customers and the third relating to the involvement and interests of its directors or proprietors outside the bank. Their main archives are Corporate Records, Customer Records, Staff Records, Premises Records, Bank and Branch Administration Records.
The specific sources of the cases are Rothschild Archives, Royal Bank of Scotland(RBS) Group Archives and HSBC Group Archives. First, Rothschild Archives, established in 1978 and called as ‘Textbook of Bank Archives’, have made its great contribution to society as an international academic research center. Especially, ‘Research Forum’ is an on-line web-page constructed for maximizing the availability as an international academic research center, and is operated with membership system. Second, RBS was originally established under the royal sanction of the King of Scotland, and now is a global bank with 350-year history. On the web-page, ‘RBS Heritage Online’ linked to RBS Homepage, RBS provides general knowledge about financing history in the Scotland region as well as the history of RBS. In addition, the pages are comprised of the various sections for the main users, through which the users can obtain the basic information for their concerns and conveniently proceed with their use in detail. Lastly, HSBC Group Archives is seen to be a case applicable, as a form of a holding company of financial institutions, directly to the domestic situation. HSBC's Asia Pacific Region Archives adopts the archives management system diversified into each regional base, and, in this respect, it shows a desirable direction how to solve the problem of the affiliate firms' archives management.
As such, the bank archives in the UK have distinctive features, but each has the evident purpose as to whether it is concerned with internal relations or external relations, and publish it actively and widely through its homepage and other means.
On the other hand, the archives management in Korea is carried out through a form of museum or the office of historical materials. The typical examples are Woori Bank's Museum of Banking History and Hana Bank's Office of Historical Materials, and the former is an active example of outside use and the latter is an example of internal use, which pioneers in introducing the systematic process through an approach of archival science.
Lastly, this study presented the basic conditions for the establishment of bank archives suitable for the domestic environment, based on the cases in the UK. The first condition is promoting the various utilization of the archives. The second is bringing up the experts of archives of banks and corporations. The third is introducing the operation of regional archives center in accordance with the bank's globalization and gigantism. The last condition is the recognition-changing efforts of corporations through cooperation with the related research institutions and the operation of the expert training programs for corporations' archives management.