Maltese banking : aspects of banking activity in Malta before 1914

Abstract

It is never easy to ascertain when a history is to start. Early developments are rarely recorded, and because of their insignifance at that time they are apt to be forgotten. We are left with the effects of something that started earlier but how it started, what started it or who started it, very often remains unknown. It is no different with banking. We are reasonably sure banking did not start in Malta; as it usually happens it came to Malta from abroad. But even a student of banking in other countries will have a hard time pinpointing its origin. There have always been dealers in money, at least since man gave up the idea of barter for the more convenient method of exchange through a common standard of value called money. But dealing in money is not always called banking; the function of banking has its limits in the field of monetary affairs. Again, their limits are not easy to define, but, since a historical outline of banking must necessarily be restricted to those limits, an attempt has to be made. Today most countries have some legislation on banking and these laws give some idea of what was meant by banking, banks or Danker in the particular country at the time legislation was introduced. But banking legislation is a comparatively recent occurrence. A member of the House of Commons had the same difficulties in 1745. "What is it that we call a banker?" he asked "there is in this city a company or corporation called goldsmiths and most of those called bankers are of that corporation; but so nor has the business any definition or description either by common law or by statute. By custom we call a man a banker who has an open shop, with proper counters, servants and books, for receiving other people's money, in order to keep it safe and return it upon, demand, and when any man has opened such a shop, we call him a banker without inquiring whether ay man has given him money to keep." [...].