The Development of Austrian Financial Institutions in Central, Eastern andSouth-Eastern Europe

This paper was written to provide students of banking and finance with an overview of thedevelopment of Austrian financial institutions in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe and tooffer them an insight into the most important literature in this field. Furthermore an attempt was madeto assess whether there were historical reasons for the recent successes of Austrian banks andbusinesses in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. On the basis of interviews with peopleinvolved in this expansion of Austrian banks and businesses the intercultural aspect of therelationships between Austrians and their business partners in this region was analysed. I would liketo warmly thank all those people who were prepared to give me their opinion on this issue ofintercultural communication and business relationships.In my opinion many excellent and detailed analyses of individual phenomena are published in this fieldof research in Austria but few comprehensive, concise and readable overviews are written for studentsand an interested public. With this paper I hope to make a small contribution to filling this gap.