City Bankers, 1890-1914 is a major contribution to a controversial area of economic history and to the debate about the nature of British society in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. It provides a detailed analysis of the banking community of London between 1890 and 1914 when the City of London was the undisputed financial centre of the world.

International financial centres have come to represent a major economic stake. Yet no historical study has been devoted to them. Professor Cassis, a leading financial historian, attempts to fill this gap by providing a comparative history of the most important centres that constitute the capitals of capital - New York, London, Frankfurt, Paris, Zurich, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore - from the beginning of the industrial age up to the present. The book has been conceived as a reflection on the dynamics of the rise and decline of international financial centres, setting them in their economic, political, social, and cultural context. While rooted in a strong and lively historical narrative, it draws on the concepts of financial economics in its analysis of events. It should widely appeal to business and finance professionals as well as to scholars and students in financial and economic history.

This is a full and authoritative account of the history of private banking, beginning with its development in conjunction with the world markets served by and centred on a few European cities, notably Amsterdam and London. These banks were usually partnerships, a form of organization which persisted as the role of private banking changed in response to the political and economic transformations of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It was in this period, and the succeeding Golden Age of private banking from 1815 to the 1870s, that many of the great names this book treats rose to fame: Baring, Rothschild, Mallet and Hottinger became synonymous with wealth and economic power, as German, French and the remarkably long-lasting Geneva banks flourished and expanded. The last parts of this study detail the way in which private banking adapted to the age of the corporate economy from the 1870s to the 1930s, the decline during and after the Great Depression and the post-war renaissance. It concludes with an appraisal of the causes and consequences of the modern expansion of private banking: no longer the exclusive preserve of partnerships, the management of investment portfolios of wealthy individuals and institutions is now a major concern of international joint-stock banks.

Sweeping changes have taken place in the financial sector during the twentieth century. Two of the most notable changes have been the growth of global markets and institutions, and the introduction of computerisation. This volume charts the course of concentration and internationalisation in banking and also examines the influence and implications of new technologies on the industry’s record-keeping practices. The exploration of concentration and internationalisation begins in the late nineteenth century and examines the effect of a wide range of factors, from macro-economic influences such as the liquidity crisis of the 1930s and the oil price rises of the 1970s, to the role of national regulation in the creation of financial markets and innovative products. The role of individual banks and their particular policies is also brought into focus. Some of Europe’s most eminent bankers provide a contemporary dimension by discussing possible future developments in continental banking.

This volume presents a broad investigation into the relationship between the centre and the periphery in banking. Focusing on the historical development of financial markets, from their emergence in the early modern period to today's global financial and capital markets, the chapters investigate how local, national and international relationships have affected and helped shape the banking industry over three-hundred years. This wide-ranging discussion in time and place is provided by a group of international experts, encompassing bankers, economists, economic historians and historians, and will be of interest to all those with a scholarly or professional interest in the development of financial institutions.

London and Paris, the world's two leading financial centres in the nineteenth century, experienced differing fortunes during the twentieth century. While London remained an international financial centre, Paris' influence declined. Yet over the last twenty years deregulation, internationalization, and the advent of the single currency have reactivated their competition in ways reminiscent of their old rivalry before the First World War. This book provides a long-term perspective on the development of each centre, with special attention devoted to the pre-1914 years and to the last decades of the twentieth century, in order to contrast these two eras of globalization. The chapters include both archive-based and synthetic surveys and are written by the leading specialists of the field. This comparison between Europe's two leading capital cities will also provide new insights into two important subjects: the political economy of Britain and France in the twentieth century, and the history of international financial centres. As much as a comparison between London and Paris as international financial centres, this book is an Anglo-French comparison; in other words, it considers, through the prism of finance, several aspects of the two countries' economic, business, social, and political histories. It includes contributions from leading banking, financial, and economic historians, and will be of interest to academics, researchers, and students of Financial and Economic History, and the role of London and Paris in particular.

The world's largest market is that for foreign exchange with a turnover running into trillions per day. The mystery is why this market is dominated by trading in London when the US dollar is the main currency in use. What role is played by this market? To many it is a speculator's paradise, exposed to manipulation and contributing to currency volatility. For others it plays a central role in in the operation of the global banking system and a mechanism for maintaining currency stability. In Forex Forever, Ranald C. Michie seeks to provide answers to these and other questions by examining how the foreign exchange market has developed in the City of London over the past 150 years and uncovers its secret existence in London before the First World War. Michie explores how the City of London became the centre of the global foreign exchange market before 1914 through the international banking network, trading on the floor of the Stock Exchange, and the communications revolution that began with the telegraph. He investigates how that position was sufficient to make London the centre of a new foreign exchange market that emerged between the wars, survived the era of fixed exchange rates after the Second World War, and then flourished from 1970 onwards. This in-depth study helps to explain how and why the global monetary system has functioned since the middle of the nineteenth century.