Interesting facts about banks
Temples were the first institutions that accepted money and valuables for safekeeping. For example, the inhabitants of ancient Athens kept their savings in the temples of the Acropolis, and medieval Europeans often kept money in monasteries.
The word “bank” is of Italian origin. In the XV-XVI centuries in the Republic of Venice, the word banco (translated from Italian – a bench, table) denoted benches, on which money changers and moneylenders laid out coins and business papers. If a moneylender went bankrupt and could not pay the money to settle their payment obligations, then this bench was broken over his own head. From the Italian banco rotto (“a broken bench”) the modern word “bankrupt” originates.
In medieval Europe, the Popes strictly forbade lending money at interest: profiting from the financial difficulties of co-religionists was considered a terrible sin. Therefore, in 1179, Pope Alexander III declared money changers and moneylenders inveterate sinners and forbade them to take communion. In addition, the “bankers” of that time were not allowed to be buried in consecrated ground, so they were buried like suicides, behind the fence of cemeteries.
Unlike Christianity, Judaism does not prohibit believers from engaging in moneylending, so the vast majority of medieval “bankers” were Jews. By the way, many Jews were money changers and moneylenders, and this often led to anti-Jewish pogroms, instigated by desperate debtors.
Like Orthodox Christianity, Islam also prohibits moneylending. Therefore, banks in Muslim countries never lend money at interest. Moreover, Islamic banks do not accept money earned from the sale of alcohol, tobacco, pornography and... pork as deposits! In addition, Muslim bankers try not to have anything to do with gambling revenue.
The oldest operating bank in the world is the Italian Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena. It was opened in 1472 in the city of Siena. Until recently, the Swiss bank Wegelin & Co., founded in 1466, was considered the oldest operating bank in the world, but it ceased operations in January 2013.
Banks in northern Italy provide loans to farmers secured by... cheese. The bank stores the parmesan heads for 2-3 years in a special storage until they mature. If a cheese maker does not succeed to repay the loan by the time the parmesan matures, the bank sells the cheese and covers its losses.
In modern Switzerland, there are about 400 banks with deposits totaling approximately 52 trillion US dollars. Interestingly, in one of them, there is an account amounting to 13 Swiss francs, opened in the name of Vladimir Lenin in 1902 and still not emptied.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest bank robbery was the mass exportation of valuables from the German Reichsbank in 1945. At that time, most of the gold reserves of the Third Reich and many cultural treasures stolen by the Nazis from European museums, with a total value of approximately $5 billion (in terms of modern prices), disappeared in an unknown direction.