History of Banking - Major Events in Banking History

Major Events in Banking History

• Florentine banking – The Medicis and Pittis among others.
• 1100–1300 – Knights Templar run earliest Euro wide /Mideast banking.
• 1542–1551 – The Great Debasement refers to the English Crown’s policy of coement during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI.
• 1553 – First joint-stock company, the Company of Merchant Adventurers to New Lands, is chartered in London.
• 1602 – The Amsterdam Stock Exchange was established by the Dutch East India Company for dealings in its printed stocks and bonds.
• 1609 – The Amsterdamsche Wisselbank (Amsterdam Exchange Bank) was founded.
• 1656 - The first European bank to use banknotes opened in Sweden for private clientele, during 1668 the institution converted to a public bank.
• 1690s – The Massachusetts Bay Colony was the first of the Thirteen Colonies to issue permanently circulating banknotes.
• 1694 – The Bank of England was set up to supply money to the King.
• 1695 – The Parliament of Scotland creates the Bank of Scotland.
• 1716 – John Law opens Banque Générale
• 1717 – Master of the Royal Mint Sir Isaac Newton established a new mint ratio between silver and gold that had the effect of driving silver out of circulation (bimetalism)and putting Britain on a gold standard.
• 1720 – The South Sea Bubble and John Law's Mississippi Scheme, which caused a European financial crisis and forced many bankers out of business.
• 1775 – The first building society, Ketley's Building Society, was established in Birmingham, England.
• 1782 – The Bank of North America opens.
• 1791 – The First Bank of the United States was a bank chartered by the United States Congress. The charter was for 20 years.
• 1800 – the Rothschild family establishes European wide banking.
• 1800 (January 18) Napolean Bonaparte founds the Bank of France.
• 1816 – The Second Bank of the United States was chartered five years after the First Bank of the United States lost its charter. This charter was also for 20 years. The bank was created to finance the country in the aftermath of the War of 1812.
• 1817 - The New York Stock and Exchange Board is established.
• 1818 - the first savings bank of Paris
• 1862 – To finance the American Civil War, the federal government under U.S. President Abraham Lincoln issued a legal tender paper money, the "greenbacks".
• 1870 - Establishment of the Deutsche Bank
• 1874 – The Specie Payment Resumption Act provided for the redemption of United States paper currency ("greenbacks"), in gold, beginning in 1879.
• 1913 – The Federal Reserve Act created the Federal Reserve System, the central banking system of the United States of America, and granted it the legal authority to issue legal tender.
• 1930–33 – In the wake of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, 9,000 banks close, wiping out a third of the money supply in the United States.
• 1933 – Executive Order 6102 signed by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt forbade ownership of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion, and Gold Certificates by U.S. citizens beyond a certain amount, effectively ending the convertibility of US dollars into gold.
• 1971 – The Nixon Shock was a series of economic measures taken by U.S. President Richard Nixon which canceled the direct convertibility of the United States dollar to gold by foreign nations. This essentially ended the existing Bretton Woods system of international financial exchange.
• 1986 – The "Big Bang" (deregulation of London financial markets) served as a catalyst to reaffirm London's position as a global centre of world banking.
• 2007 – Start of the Late-2000s financial crisis that saw the a credit crunch that led to the failure and bail-out of a large number of the worlds biggest banks.
• 2008 – Washington Mutual collapses. It was the largest bank failure in history.