The most important part of this record group – listed under archive initial II/2 General files (Governing Board files) (“Bankakten, allgemeine (Direktoriumsakten)”) – consists of five file groups II/2a to II/2c, II/2e and II/2f.These documents reflect major changes in the central bank’s organization since 1816.
They generally cover all topics related to central banking, except for documents directly linked to monetary transactions or accounting records, since documents dealing with these two issues fall under record group IV (documents on operative business).The other groups belonging to record group II/2 contain lists, indexes and other files complementing the information covered in the five file groups mentioned above.
A special collection of documents from the monarchy period, filed under archive initials II/3 to II/11, complements record group II. These documents were initially recorded and filed separately for operational reasons. In order to simplify the indexing and registration process, they were eventually also included in the general register. A case in point is the minutes on the “Wiener Währungsgebahrungsgeschäft” (a currency reform), which were kept separately until 1869 and included in the general register by decree in 1870 (archive initial II/4b). Thereafter, all new incoming, related documents were recorded under category 18 “Miscellen” (Miscellaneous) of the bank’s general filing index.