History of banking
aspect of history
The history of banking began with the first prototype banks, that is, the merchants of the world, who gave grain loans to farmers and traders who carried goods between cities. This was around 2000 BCE in Assyria, India and Sumer. Later, in ancient Greece and during the Roman Empire, lenders based in temples gave loans, while accepting deposits and performing the change of money. Archaeological findings from this period in ancient China and India also include evidence of money lending.
Many scholars trace the historical roots of the modern banking system to medieval and Renaissance Italy, particularly the affluent cities of Florence, Venice and Genoa. The Bardi and Peruzzi families dominated banking in 14th century Florence, establishing branches in many other parts of Europe. The most famous Italian bank was the Medici Bank, established by Giovanni Medici in 1397. The oldest bank still in existence is Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, headquartered in Siena, Italy, which has been operating continuously since 1472. Until the end of 2002, the oldest bank still in operation was the Banco di Napoli headquartered in Naples, Italy, which had been operating since 1463.
Development of banking spread from northern Italy throughout the Holy Roman Empire, and in the 15th and 16th century to northern Europe.
“History of banking” enters the record as aspect of history. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what History, banking and aspect can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “History of banking” 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.