Founding of the Bank of Amsterdam (Wisselbank)
- Date
- 31 January 1609
- Category
- Economy & trade
- Region
- Europe
- Era
- Early Modern
- Significance
On 31 January 1609 the municipal authorities of Amsterdam established the Amsterdamsche Wisselbank, or Bank of Amsterdam, an exchange bank created to bring order to the chaotic monetary conditions of the early Dutch Republic, where hundreds of foreign and domestic coins of varying weight and fineness circulated without a reliable system of exchange.
The bank accepted deposits of coin and bullion and credited merchants with a stable, standardised unit of account known as bank money or the bank guilder, against which payments could be settled by transfers between accounts rather than by the physical movement of specie. This book-entry clearing system, backed by the city's guarantee of deposits, made large commercial and stock transactions far more efficient and gave the bank guilder the status of an international reference currency. As the first major public deposit and exchange bank in northern Europe and a recognised precursor of modern central banking, the Wisselbank was central to Amsterdam's rise as the leading financial centre of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The institution declined after the 1780s, was effectively insolvent by 1790, and was finally liquidated around 1819-1820 after the founding of De Nederlandsche Bank in 1814.
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Empires active in 31 January 1609
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- French Colonial Empire (First)1534 CE – 1814 CE
- Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth1569 CE – 1795 CE
- Dutch Empire1581 CE – 1975 CE
Related economy & trade events
- Founding of the English and Dutch East India Companies1600–1602
- Founding of the Bank of England27 July 1694
- Joint-stock companies and the world's first stock exchange1600–1611 (VOC chartered 20 March 1602; exchange opened 1611)
- The Manila galleon opens trans-Pacific trade1565
- Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations9 March 1776
- Royal African Company chartered, expanding England's slave trade1672
Further reading
The wider story
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