The local savings companies have been the target of considerable criticism since their establishment in 1999. This is directed especially at the fact that their existence gives the savings bank group an unusual and clumsy structure compared with the traditional cooperative banks. For in the latter, the members of the cooperative participate directly in the banks without any intermediate agents. As a result, the avowed aim of the savings bank group to participate without restrictions in a widely familiar and usual (cooperative) legal form has not been completely achieved by the reform of 1999. Moreover, the criti- cism also attacks the high administrative costs caused by the existence of numerous savings associ- ations/companies at.
