ABSTRACT
The appearance of new banks of issue in Spain in the mid-1840s must be seen against a backdrop of economic normalisation and recovering trade, which soon made evident the need for new ways to furnish credit and means of payment to the economy’s private sector. A comparison of the trajectories of the Bank of Spain’s branches and the independent banks offers useful information on the attitudes of the leaders of the “official” Spanish bank. The potential effect of the policy is evident from the parallel fall in the deposits of the Bank of Spain and the provincial banks. While the Bank of Spain circulated banknotes in amounts that were clearly lower than their European counterparts, the most active Spanish provincial banks were at the same level of issue as Scotland’s and England’s non-privileged banks. The first element to underline is that Spain is the country with the greatest relative weight of non-official banks in the circulation of fiat money.
