ABSTRACT
Introduction Historically, the banking systems of most European countries were largely similar. ey were all ‘three-pillar systems’ comprising three important and largely distinct groups of banks. In this kind of system, the rst pillar is that of the private banks – some large and some small, and some with and some without a branch network. e second pillar is that of a country’s savings banks, consisting of local savings banks, central nancial institutions and a host of other a liated nancial and non- nancial institutions. Cooperative or mutual banks and their a liated institutions constitute the third pillar. us almost by the de nition of a three-pillar-system, savings banks and cooperative banks, the main topic of the present volume on ‘alternative banks’, have played an important role in the nancial systems of almost all European countries until quite recently.
