For time immemorial, we have been shaped by interpersonal relationships and the urge to seek out the new and unknown: trade, commerce and communication have played a pivotal role for mankind over the millennia. In the process, humans left their familiar surroundings and, driven by curiosity and a thirst for knowledge, ventured out to the four corners of the world on journeys of discovery.

So by no means is globalisation a new phenomenon, and it is certainly not just an invention of the Europeans. Its roots are to be found in the centuries-old avenues for buying, selling and communicating that have stretched since antiquity across the Mediterranean region, Africa and the Middle East, all the way to India, China and ultimately North and South America.

The creative leitmotif of our 2012 annual report is: “on the move”. By highlighting the key trade routes of the past four thousand years, it illustrates the dynamic force and flow that has always carried humanity to new horizons.

The rendering of banking services has forever gone hand-in-hand with this evolution of trade and communication. And the means and modes of payment along these routes have been constantly refined.

VP Bank itself is also “on the move” by discovering new products, new advisory approaches, new markets – and above all, new contacts to people and new clients. A passion for the new plays the most important role in VP Bank’s way of exchanging ideas and communicating. So navigate with us through the various passages of this annual report and get to know more about VP Bank.

Ferdinand de Lesseps, constructor of the Suez Canal, used the capital of many small French investors to found the Interoceanic Panama Canal Company. He was convinced that that Panama Canal would be just as easy to build as the Suez Canal and therefore took up the work. What de Lesseps was not aware of though were the climatic, geological and technical peculiarities of Panama. Due to construction hindrances, natural disasters and thousands of deaths from tropical illnesses, Interoceanic Panama Canal Company was ultimately forced to file for bankruptcy.

A shipping link between the Atlantic and Pacific had long been envisaged by the USA, and the demise of the Interoceanic Panama Canal Company opened a door of opportunity for the Americans. The “Spooner Act” of 1902 empowered President Theodore Roosevelt to buy the bankruptcy assets of the company. Panama, now with the backing of America, declared its independence from Colombia in 1903 and the Panama Canal Zone was established. In the summer of 1904, construction work was taken up again, this time under the aegis of American civil engineers who took steps to combat vile tropical diseases such as yellow fever and malaria. On 15 August 1914, the Panama Canal – the world’s largest and most expensive engineering project ever to be under-taken until then – opened its floodgates for the first time. Through the end of the 20th century, the Americans held sovereignty over the canal and the strips of land along each of its shorelines. At the turn of the century, the passageway was handed back to Panama.

Close to 50 miles in length, the Panama Canal slices through the Isthmus of Panama from the Atlantic to the Pacific and saves ships the 12,500 mile journey around Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America. With three lockage systems and a total of twelve locks, it overcomes an 85-foot altitude difference between the two oceans and, along with the Suez Canal, is one of the world’s most important inland waterways. Roughly 14,000 ships transit the canal each year.

The journey takes approximately twelve hours and the ships are assisted by port and starboard cog-railway locomotives that either tug the vessels or brake their forward motion.