Bank – The home of money transactions
Origin of the Bank
The name bank derives from the Italian word banco “desk/bench”, used during the Renaissance by Florentine bankers, who used to make their transactions above a desk covered by a green tablecloth. However, there are traces of banking activity even in ancient times.
Oldest Coin of the world
In fact, the word traces its origins back to the Ancient Roman Empire, where moneylenders would set up their stalls in the middle of enclosed courtyards called macella on a long bench called a bancu, from which the words banco and bank are derived.
The earliest evidence of money-changing activity is depicted on a silver drachm coin from ancient hellenic colony Trapezus on the Black Sea, modern Trabzon, c. 350-325 BC, presented in the British Museum in London. The coin shows a banker’s table (trapeza) laden with coins, a pun on the name of the city.
Bank – The Biggest Financial Institution
This entry was posted on Monday, July 26th, 2010 at 5:33 am and is filed under Capital Finance. Follow the comments through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or leave a trackback.