Amsterdam exchange bank
The Amsterdamer Wechselbank (ndl: Amsterdamsche Wisselbank ) was the first urban exchange bank in Western Europe.
It was their task to promote payment transactions, which was made more difficult due to the different currencies in circulation at the time. The Amsterdam exchange bank accepted money in various currencies and credited the deposit to an account in bank guilders or the foreign currency. This enabled cashless payments to be made between the accounts of different people at the bank .
The first exchange banks had previously been established in Venice ( Banco di Rialto ) in 1587 and in Milan in 1593, but the Amsterdam Exchange Bank, which opened its doors on January 31, 1609, was the first public bank to offer cashless settlement of accounts receivable made. It is therefore the first bank in the world that can be called a central bank .
background
As a result of extensive trade in the Golden Age , the Amsterdamers came into contact with many foreign types of coin. With the approval of the sovereign, each country, each municipality, each city could strike its own coins. Therefore, within the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands , as in the countries of its trading partners, a large number of different coins were in circulation whose value was not immediately recognizable. There were also often inferior coins in circulation, the amount indicated on them differing greatly from the actual value of the precious metal from which they were made. Because of this, there were always inconsistencies and the dealers and money changers recorded the exchange rates of the individual coins in extensive books.
Money changers and exchange offices were indispensable during this time. There, for a fee, the absolute and relative value of various coins could be found out and coins could be exchanged. But the money changers weren't always trustworthy.
Foundation and operation
In 1609, the Amsterdam city administration founded its first exchange bank, which was housed on the ground floor of the town hall (the oude Stadhuis pictured above ). Her duties included accepting deposits and enabling cashless transfers between merchants from account to account. Furthermore, precious metal and non-viable coins should be bought up and new coins of stable value should be minted.
The bank accepted numerous types of coins as well as gold and silver and "changed" by assessing the value and issuing credits in "bank guilders" ( bank money ) with a fixed silver content, on the basis of which the customer could dispose of his deposit. Since customers could trust the bank, international trade was made much easier and the European coin chaos of the early 17th century stabilized. This is how the basis for cashless payments was laid.
The Amsterdam currency exchange bank was of far greater importance than just local. In its heyday it enjoyed a worldwide reputation. As a giro bank, the bank carried out cashless transfers from one customer to another customer's account. In doing so, she did not put bank or securities into circulation, but rather credit balances in the form of giro or bank money, credit balances at the bank that the customer can access at any time. The city of Amsterdam acted as guarantor for the paid-in amount, the value of which was deposited in silver. Furthermore, the services offered were reliable and inexpensive, in some cases even free of charge. The exchange bank quickly won the trust of the citizens.
The exchange bank had a large staff of officials. Until 1686 it was led by three, later four, commissioners, who were often members of the Vroedschap (Council of Wise Men). Two of them had to be present at all times during the opening hours of the exchange bank. They supervised four chief accountants, who performed the service with four counter accountants, three cashiers, various employees, servants, messengers and the "essayeur". The latter held a particularly important position. He examined the material content of coins in the evidence room. Mostly he was also responsible for buying precious metals and ordering certain coins from the mint master.
Each of the accountants had their own specific task: the first one received the written payment orders, the second kept the journal , the third the balance sheet and the fourth the general ledger .
This laid the foundations for the Netherlands to develop into a capital exporting country; the bank guilder quickly developed into the key European currency of the 17th century. In 1615 a branch was set up in Middelburg , and another in Rotterdam in 1635 .
Of great importance was the stipulation that all bills of exchange of more than 600 guilders, drawn and negotiated or otherwise drawn in Amsterdam and due in Amsterdam, had to be processed through the Amsterdam currency exchange bank. This provision led to the fact that the exchange bank soon became the "main cashier" of Amsterdam trade. Granting credit was not part of their business purpose and discounting bills of exchange , the most common form of merchant credit at the time, was prohibited.
Decline and closure
As a financial center, Amsterdam was the scene of the first securities trade , but also of the first international stock market crash in 1637. Another scandal hit the Amsterdam currency exchange in 1794 when it became known that the bank had issued millions of guilders of illegal unsecured loans to the Dutch East India Company . This scandal marked the beginning of the end of the bank, which had to close its doors for good in 1820. It was another sign that the Netherlands was no longer the world's financial center.
On April 5, 1814, King Willem I set up the Dutch Bank ( De Nederlandsche Bank , DNB), which received the monopoly to issue Dutch banknotes.
literature
Exchange rate tables and introductory notes on the usages of payment transactions and currency relationships are provided in the two volumes of the series Currencies of the World :
- Jürgen Schneider et al. (Hrsg.): Currencies of the world. Volume 3: European Exchange Rates in the 17th Century. Steiner, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-515-06062-6 ( contributions to economic and social history 46).
- Jürgen Schneider et al. (Hrsg.): Currencies of the world. Volume 4: Money and currencies in Europe in the 18th century. Steiner, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-515-06072-3 ( contributions to economic and social history 49).
Representations
- JG van Dillen: The Bank of Amsterdam. In: JG van Dillen: History of the principal public banks, accompanied by extensive bibliographies of the history of banking and credit in 11 European countries. Nijhoff, The Hague 1934, pp. 79-123 ( Contributions to the history of banking 1, ZDB -ID 633294-8 ).
- Monika Siemers: Structure of the banking system in the Netherlands. Knapp, Frankfurt am Main 1981, ISBN 3-7819-2768-7 ( Structure of Foreign Banking Systems 16).
- Hans Pohl (ed.): European banking history. Knapp, Frankfurt am Main 1993, ISBN 3-7819-0518-7 .
- Eckart Schremmer (Ed.): Money and Currency from the 16th Century to the Present. Steiner, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-515-06220-3 ( quarterly for social and economic history. Supplements 106).
- Stephen Quinn, William Roberds: An Economic Explanation of the Early Bank of Amsterdam, Debasement, Bills of Exchange, and the Emergence of the First Central Bank. Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Atlanta GA 2006 ( Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Working paper. 13, 2006) online (PDF; 240 kB) via the website of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
- Lucien Gillard: La Banque d'Amsterdam et le florin européen au temps de la République néerlandaise (1610-1820) . Paris, École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 2004
Remarks
- ↑ Stephen Quinn / William Roberds: An Economic Explanation of the Early Bank of Amsterdam, Debasement, Bills of Exchange, and the Emergence of the First Central Bank , Working paper (2006), available online ( Memento of the original of September 27, 2007 in Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. as a PDF document.
- ↑ The bank's profit came mainly from trading in precious metals - which was officially prohibited by the state.
- ↑ according to the German legal dictionary a "counter computer that was attached to the tax collector".
- ^ The double-entry bookkeeping system developed in Lombardy in 1340 had also replaced commercial bookkeeping in the Netherlands .
