History of Banking

The history of the bank started a long way back. In early civizations, a temple was considered the safest refuge. It was a solid building, constantly attended, and filled with sacred characters which  might scare off thieves. In Babylob, in the 18th BC, there were records of loans made by the priests of the temple. The concept of banks had arrived.
The progress of banking activities was then abvious in Greece and Rome. In Greece,private entrepeneurs and temples undertook financial transactions.Deposits  and loans  were made, money was changed from one currency to another and coins were tested for weight  and purity. The people in Rome adopted the banking practices of Greece. By the 2th century AD, a debt could be officially paid off by depositing an appropriate sum into a bank, and public notaries were appointed to register such transaction.
The collapse of trade after the Roman Empire made banker less necessary than before. It got worse because the Christian church dissaproved of the charging of interest. The Christian probhibition on interst eventually provided an opportunity for bankers of another religion. The Jews, barred from most other forms of employment, supplied this need.

 During the 13th century, bankers from North Italy, collectively known as the Lombards, gradually replaced the Jews in their role as money-lenders to the rich and powerful. The business skills of the Italian were enhanced by their knowledge of double-entry book- keeping. Their creative accountancy allowed them to avoid the Christian sin of lending money at interest. The interest on a loan was presented in the accounts either as a voluntary gift from the borrower or as a reward for the risk taken.
By the early 14th century, two families florence, Italy, the Bardirs and the Peruzzis, had grown very wealthy by offering financial services. They arranged for the collection and transfer of money. They facilitated trade by providing merchants with bills of exchange, which was money paid in by a debtor in a town which could be paid out to a creditor in another town by presenting the bill ( a principle familiar now in the form of a cheque). In 1587 the Banco della Piazza di Rialto was opened in Venice as a state initiative. Its purpose was to carry out the important function of holding a merchant's funds on a safe deposit and to enable financial transaction in Venice and elsewhere to be madewithout the physical transfer of coins.