ABSTRACT
Towards the beginning of the fifteenth century, the most important of the Italian banking houses was the Medici Bank, founded in Florence in 1397. The country banks were active in financing the Lancashire cotton and other cloth manufacturing industry, the iron and heavy metal industries, mining, and sugar refining – contributing to both working capital and fixed capital investment. In the United States, the rapid development of the West was helped by bank financing of canals, railroads and other public works. In Russia, where the development of the vast Ural region depended on improved transportation links, it was the banks which assisted the State in financing railway construction in the area. While extending their activities overseas by financing international trade and by lending to governments, banks were at the same time contributing to the expansion of commerce, manufacturing, and infrastructure within their individual countries.
