banking and finance - events

c. 400 BC	India	Coins begin to appear in northern India, the idea having arrived from Greece via Persia.
350 BC	China	Coinage is introduced in China, along with the use of the horse as a cavalry charger rather than for drawing chariots. Earthwork walls are built at various places along the northern and western frontiers as protection against the surrounding nomads. (These are later used as a basis for the Great Wall.) In central China, the Han state is being formed, though it is the Qin state that is the most powerful.
269 BC	Rome	The first true coins appear in Rome. Made of cast bronze in different denominations, the obverses depict the head of a deity and the reverses a ship's prow.
1024	China, Song Empire	The Song dynasty government in China takes over the banks of Chengtu, in Szechwan. Their certificates of deposit then become official and thus become the first paper currency in the world.
1345	Italy, Florence	The great banking houses of Bardi and Peruzzi, in Florence, Italy, go bankrupt following the failure of King Edward III of England to pay his debts. The proletariat (populo minuto) makes its first attempt to win political significance and is defeated. Its leader Ciuto Brandini is hanged.
1531	Spanish Netherlands	The Beurs opens in Antwerp in the Netherlands; it becomes the model for all subsequent stock exchanges and symbolizes the new commercial significance of the city as the chief trading centre of the Habsburg realms.
1566–1570	England	The English financier Thomas Gresham builds a ‘Bourse’ for the money market in London, England, which receives a charter as the Royal Exchange the year after its completion.
28 March 1897	Japan	Japan adopts the gold standard, linking its paper money directly to its gold reserves, the accepted Western base for a stable financial system.
15 November 1923	Germany	The value of the German mark drops to rate of 4,200,000 million to the US dollar; the government introduces a new currency, the rentenmark, to replace the mark.
30 August 1924	Germany	The German Reichsbank becomes independent of the government and introduces a new mark, following the complete devaluation of the old one by hyperinflation.
28 April 1925	United Kingdom	Britain returns sterling to the gold standard (linking the value of the pound to the Bank of England's gold reserves) at the prewar level of US $4.86, an act deemed necessary by politicians to maintain London, England, as an international centre of finance, but which leads to increasing difficulties for British industry.
24 June 1928	France	The French franc is again devalued to make the national debt easier to pay as France's economic difficulties continue.
24–29 October 1929	USA	Share values crash on the Wall Street stock market, New York City, starting with ‘Black Thursday’ and continuing (after closure of the market from noon on 24 October until 28 October) on ‘Black Monday’ (28 October) and ‘Black Tuesday’ (29 October). Widespread panic results in the trading of some 16.4 million shares, a new record. The episode triggers still more panic in the days and weeks ahead, ultimately precipitating the Depression.
21 September 1931	United Kingdom	Britain abandons the gold standard (the linking of the value of sterling to the Bank of England's gold reserves), signalling Britain's willingness to take economic decisions without regard to international finance.
8 December 1931–1 January 1932	USA	Departing from his laissez-faire philosophy, the US president, Herbert Hoover, asks Congress to create the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC). Capitalized in January at $2 billion, the RFC will lend money to banks, railroads, insurance companies, and building and loan associations.
27 September 1936	France, Switzerland, Netherlands	France, Switzerland, and the Netherlands abandon the gold standard.
1946	USA	The Exchange National Bank in Chicago, Illinois, becomes the first drive-in bank.
1950	USA	Diners Club cards, introduced in the USA, become the first credit cards. Initially issued by lawyer Frank X McNamara to around 200 members for use in 27 restaurants in the New York City area, the scheme gains popularity and quickly spreads.
1958	USA	The Bank of America issues the first recognizable multipurpose credit card, the Bank Americard, later known as Visa; the American Express charge card is also launched.
1959	UK	The first drive-in bank in Britain is opened in Liverpool.
7 March 1966	UK	The Midland Bank in Britain is the first to introduce cheque guarantee cards.
29 June 1966	UK	The first British credit card, the Barclaycard, is launched.
8 August 1969	France	France devalues the franc by 12% following a European financial crisis.
15 February 1971	UK	Decimal currency is introduced in Britain: the half-crown and florin go out of use and the pound is now worth 100 rather than 240 pennies.
18 December 1971	USA	The USA devalues the dollar by 7.9% and lifts its import surcharge. Other major currencies are realigned accordingly.
20 January 1972	USA	Juanita Kreps is appointed the first woman governor of the New York stock exchange.
13 February 1973	USA	The USA devalues the dollar by 10% by raising the price of gold to $42.22 an ounce.
16 March 1973	France	Finance ministers of the European Economic Community (Common Market) countries, meeting in Paris, France, agree to establish a floating exchange rate system.
15 March 1976	France	The French franc is forced out of the European currency ‘snake’ (system of exchange rates).
25 March 1987	Belgium	The Belgian government mints ECU coins: these are legal tender in Belgium.
19 October 1987	USA	The New York Dow Jones Industrial Average falls 508.32 points (23%) on ‘Black Monday’, precipitating large falls in stock prices across the world.
1995	UK, Singapore, Netherlands	Britain's oldest merchant bank, Barings, collapses (in administration 26 January) after Nicholas Leeson, a futures trader based in Singapore, accumulates losses of 625 million Greek drachmas; Barings's main operating sections and liabilities for Far East losses are sold to the Netherlands-based Internationale Nederlanden Groep NV for 1 Greek drachma (6 March); Leeson is arrested at Frankfurt Airport, Germany (2 March), and eventually agrees to return to Singapore (29 October) where he pleads guilty to two charges of deception (he is sentenced to 6½ years in prison on 2 December).
10 September 1996	UK, Switzerland	British Foreign and Commonwealth Office documents show that $500 million worth of gold ($6 billion in today's prices) from unknown sources were deposited in Swiss banks during World War II; there is speculation that some belonged to Holocaust victims.
1 January 2002		The single European currency becomes a reality in 12 member states of the European Union as euro notes and coins are introduced officially to replace national currencies. The United Kingdom, Denmark, and Sweden remain outside the eurozone.
1 March 2002		In the 12 European Union member states that make up the euro zone, all remaining national banknotes and coins cease to be legal tender as the transition to the single European currency is completed.
14 September 2003	Sweden	Swedish voters reject a proposal to adopt the European Union (EU) single currency, the euro, by 56% to 42% in a referendum, despite widespread support for the move among Sweden's political establishment and industrial sector. Of the EU's 15 current member states, only Sweden, the UK, and Denmark remain outside the euro zone.
6 March 2006	UK	HSBC, the UK's largest bank, announces pre-tax profits of £11.9 billion for 2005, a record for the European banking industry.