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Hamburger Sparkasse

Savings Bank in Germany

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 9, 2026
Entity authorityQ1573140 ↗
Source-derived summary

Hamburger Sparkasse AG (Haspa) is one of 5 free public savings banks in Germany based in Hamburg. With a balance sheet total of around 41.9 billion euros and about 5,000 employees, it is the largest savings bank in Germany. It was founded in 1827 in the legal form of the old Hamburg law. In 2003 the bank was separated to a stock corporation and the original Hamburger Sparkasse changed its name to Haspa Finanzholding.

Haspa has been designated as a Significant Institution since the entry into force of European Banking Supervision in late 2014, and as a consequence is directly supervised by the European Central Bank.

Corporate structure

Hamburger Sparkasse is a non-listed stock corporation. The legal basis of the Sparkasse is the Haspa statutes (Haspa-Satzung). For historical reasons, unlike most German Sparkassen, Haspa is not governed by the Sparkassengesetz but by the Aktiengesetz.

Services

Haspa provides the universal banking business as a savings bank. According to its data, it is the market leader in the Hamburg Metropolitan Region for retail and medium-sized corporate clients.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Hamburger Sparkasse” as savings Bank in Germany. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1827, 2003, 2014—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1827, 2003-06-16—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. The account is most persuasive where Hamburger, Sparkasse and Savings can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as savings Bank in Germany. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1573140. VIAF identifies the subject as 130162759. The Library of Congress control number is n78015653. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1827, 2003 and 2014.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Hamburger Sparkasse”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Hamburger Sparkasse primary sources, Hamburger Sparkasse archive and Hamburger research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Hamburger Sparkasse”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Hamburger Sparkasse” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.