Why do you think people invented money? History of money from antiquity to the present day. Financial policies of Great Britain and France

Money is the universal equivalent of the cost of goods and services, part of the financial system of each country. Before adopting their modern form, they went through centuries of evolution. In this review you will learn about the history of the first money, what stages it went through and how it changed over time.

How did the money come about?

Market relations began to form as early as the 7th-8th millennium BC. At that time, primitive people exchanged excess products with each other, and proportions were established depending on the circumstances. With the advent of the social division of labor, barter gradually became inconvenient, and our ancestors began to use various objects as money.

In Rus', the furs of fur-bearing animals were used as a means of payment, in Ancient Greece - large and small livestock: rams, horses, bulls. In Ancient India, China, on the east coast of Africa and the Philippine Islands - shells collected on a string. During the time of Julius Caesar, slaves were used for this purpose. The inhabitants had flamingo feathers. In Melanesia, pig tails were used, and in Spar, stone cobblestones were used. In some countries, human skulls were the means of payment.

Converting first money

Gradually, some types of currencies were replaced by others, regardless of the will of the people. During the period of wars and revolutions, there was a massive regression. In Belarus, the Germans gave a kilogram of salt for the head of a partisan, considering this product to be very expensive. Later, different types of metals were used as money: copper, tin, lead, iron. In ancient Greece, iron rods were considered the best medium of exchange. Now the question arises about how money changed further.

Evolution of banknotes in Russia

The first paper notes appeared under the rule of the Russian Empress Catherine II in 1769. They were very similar to bank receipts and were used to pay salaries to officials. Although the bills had numbering and text, the printing quality was poor, so counterfeiters easily counterfeited them. It was necessary to replace all issued banknotes with more reliable ones, which is why after the Napoleonic War the history of money changed again.

A new type of money appeared in 1818. They were decorated with Empire style ornaments and engravings. The year 1897 was characterized by the stability of the financial system because paper money was easily exchanged for gold coins.

New technologies for banknote production in Russia

From the middle of the 19th century, metallographic printing from engraving was used, which became the basis of modern banking printing. At the end of the period under review, the first Oryol Seal device was designed, producing bright banknotes. This technology is still used today because it does not allow counterfeiting of money.

The history of the origin of money tells us that the first 500 ruble banknotes with the image of Peter the Great and 100 ruble banknotes with a photograph of Catherine II appeared at the beginning of the 20th century. After the revolution and during the war, the financial system collapsed. During these periods, many people were able to create counterfeit money in unlimited quantities. This is how hyperinflation progressed and our country’s economy deteriorated. Vladimir Lenin carried out not only the NEP and monetary reform, but also issued chervonets, then treasury notes. Later, new banknotes were issued with additional security mechanisms.

Historical data on money in Ukraine

Previously, on Ukrainian lands, our ancestors used Greek coins. Later, the money of the Roman Empire appeared, which was used to accumulate wealth and produce jewelry. Thanks to trade relations with foreign merchants, the currency spread to Podolia, Prykarpattya, Transnistria and other areas. Due to the economic and political crisis in the Roman state that arose in the 3rd century, ties were terminated. In the 5th-7th centuries, Byzantine and Arab currencies came into circulation.

During the rule of Vladimir Svyatoslavovich (918-1015), the history of money in Ukraine was supplemented by a new event: they began to produce the oldest coins - silver coins (weight up to 4.68 g) and zlatniks (weight 4.4 g). They were marked with an image of the prince on the throne with a trident, which was the family sign of the Rurikovichs. At the end of the 11th century, the first “hryvnia” made of silver appeared.

In the middle of the 18th century, Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire, and therefore its monetary system completely changed. The modification of the currency complicated the relations of residents of the former state with other countries. After the proclamation of the Ukrainian People's Republic (1917), it was decided to introduce paper hryvnias into circulation, which became the legal national currency in 1996.

Financial policies of Great Britain and France

Pound sterling - used long before the formation of the state itself. In the 9th-10th centuries, 240 pence were made from it, which were called “sterling”. 400 years later, gold pounds appeared in circulation. Thus, the bimetallic monetary system functioned until the end of the 18th century. The conflict with France and the First and Second World Wars greatly weakened the financial system, but over time it recovered. This is how the history of money was formed in this country.

The money in circulation in France today is the euro. However, this was not always the case. The first paper bills appeared in 1716. During the revolution (1790), the provisional government issued assignats and mandates. Over time, they depreciated, and in 1800 Napoleon created the Bank issuing francs. This currency turned out to be the most stable before the outbreak of the First World War. After the financial system was restored, francs were again in circulation. In 1997, they ceased to be convertible, and France switched to the euro.

Formation of credit money

Credit money appeared simultaneously with progress in commodity production. The recipient is given a certain amount with the condition of accepting obligations to repay it within the period established by the agreement. The type of funds under consideration is created not from circulation, but from the circulation of capital. It is determined not by the state’s gold and foreign exchange reserves, but by the number of loans provided. But when and how did credit money appear?

The history of credit funds began with bills of exchange, first created in Italy in the Middle Ages. Then banknotes appeared. In the 19th and 20th centuries, checks became popular. After this, electronic money was introduced, as well as plastic cards.

Features of providing a loan

The borrower is given a loan if he is able to make payments consistently. All information about cash receipts is entered into the credit history. If a person does not fulfill his obligations, this will negatively affect his ability to take out a loan in the future.

Have you encountered a similar situation? Do not be upset, because there are banks that lend money without contact. Contact new commercial financial institutions seeking to gain a position in the market by any means. Although their interest rate will be much higher, the client who is caught late repaying the loan has the opportunity to get a loan. Pay attention to the following organizations: Avangard, Zapsibkombank, Tinkoff Credit Systems, Baltinvestbank.

History of "Yandex.Money"

Currently, this electronic payment system is popular. It provides financial settlements between persons who have opened accounts on it. The currency is the Russian ruble. All operations take place in a special web interface in real time. This is exactly how the Yandex.Money system works.

The history of the system is connected with the idea of ​​​​implementing electronic money. The program began functioning on July 24, 2002. Russians immediately appreciated its advantages, and the popularity of the innovation began to grow rapidly. It gradually developed, and within three years new opportunities for working through the interface became available to users. In 2007, Yandex became the full owner of the program. Three years later, it was already working with 3,500 partners, and after some time it spread to different CIS countries. In 2012, the number of electronic wallets increased.

The most important achievement today is the ability to transfer electronic money to bank accounts and vice versa. The company is continuously working to improve the service, so users can count on an improved Yandex.Money system.

The history of money is constantly changing due to the circumstances of a particular state. As some countries continue to conflict with each other, there is a possibility that their monetary systems will weaken. It is still difficult to predict what changes will occur in the future.

On September 19, 2012, a local currency was introduced into circulation in the UK.
The circulation of the currency is limited to the city of Bristol, after which the local pound is named; people have already dubbed it “Bristolik”. This experiment is being conducted to support small businesses.
The fact is that due to the protracted crisis, the purchasing power of the population has fallen even in such a rich country as Great Britain. The Bristol pound can be obtained by exchanging it at a bank at a rate of 1:1 in relation to the pound sterling. When performing a reverse transaction, a 3% tax will be charged.

How can introducing a local currency revitalize the economy? Let's figure it out together. What is money, when and how did it appear?
Money originated in China during the Shang Dynasty, which ruled from 1600 to 1027 BC. On September 18, 2012, the People's Bank of China issued a gold coin in honor of the first Chinese state.

During the Shang Dynasty, centralization of power began in China, the ruler was the king, he was the nominal owner of all the land of the state.
There were clerks and archivists at the court. The royal power relied on the nobility, warriors and clergy. Ritual services were held in temples.
What happened in China before 3,600 years ago, no reliable written sources have been found to date.
It is assumed that various tribes lived on the territory of China, subsisting on crafts and natural exchange. How could the tribes unite, how did the monetary form of payment appear? Scientists say that a need simply arose, they just got together and came up with money for themselves. Let's try to imagine the average person of that time. He fishes, picks berries, raises livestock, makes household items...
Introduced? Now imagine that he so simply exchanged it for some items that were of no value to him, because before that there was no money at all! Natural exchange is understandable, a man exchanged his fish for vegetables, for clothes, a shovel... But why does he need pieces of bronze, what, carry these pieces of iron with him? It was only later that money with holes appeared, for ease of carrying, and then they were cast coins, similar to the one shown in the picture.

How to wear them and why such a bizarre shape, does it look like the head of a cow or ram? Surely taxes were introduced in the emerging state, but how to maintain the administrative apparatus, the king? And of course, they were initially collected in kind. Some will take fish, some clothes, some cattle, and this includes food and skins - they can be used for clothing. Surely the standard of tax was cattle, but why not take half of a cow? This coin really looks like a cow's head. By the way, such coins were in use until the 3rd century BC.
But how can you force a person to pay taxes? After all, he himself won’t pay it voluntarily, why is this all of a sudden, none of his ancestors paid anything. Here we remember the time of perestroika and the beginning of the 90s of the last century. Remember how a person came to a cooperator (artisan) offering security and when he did not agree, the next day hooligans came and caused damage, the cooperator himself turned to the “security structure”?
How can you track whether the tax has been paid or not, since paper was invented in China fifteen hundred years later? Signs? Well, this is China, there were a lot of them there even then. Cars with signs are difficult to take into account and control.
So they came up with tokens - coins. The coins are easy to carry and can also be exchanged. This is how one of the modern functions of money appeared - a measure of value.
The tax inspector (publican) gave one coin in exchange for a large horned animal, the same thing happened when exchanging 3 goats, 3 bags of fish, etc. Of course, there were cunning people; they immediately laid down such a loophole with deception. However, little has changed since then.
Over time, it became fashionable to show how much you paid in taxes, which means you are a rich person. We started exchanging and collecting these tokens. The function of modern money has appeared - accumulation. If people understood that by accepting a coin or a bill from anyone, they doom themselves to be tied to the one who produced it. After all, it will be necessary to change them back, and this is how people drive themselves into slavery, dependence on paying taxes.
The further this epic continued, the more money was introduced into circulation. The money supply began to far exceed the quantity of goods produced. The goods deteriorate, and there are practically no coins. This is how inflation appeared. Then they began to lend money at interest, thereby further depreciating the value of the goods. After all, you took one coin, but you need to return 2. This is such nonsense.
I wonder who came up with all this and for what purposes? But you can read about this and much more in Anastasia Novykh’s unique books. It describes not only how the world works, but also how to bypass the traps cunningly placed on every corner, and, of course, about those who set these traps and why. You can download books completely free of charge (spiritual knowledge is given only for free) in the corresponding section of our website. And you can read the fragment right here, see the excerpt below.

Why did people invent money? This question has been haunting many for a long time. Someone guessed about this invention a long time ago, but others still don’t understand why we need these pieces of paper, and, especially, where and how they can be produced in large quantities.
If you take a short excursion into history, you can easily understand that primitive people did not need money at all. Everything they needed at that time, they took from Mother Nature: they lived in caves, made fire from a spark, collected fruits from trees, hunted, etc.

But, over time, people’s demands began to grow; they were no longer satisfied with the situation “what you find is yours.” Many began to prefer choice. For example, I wanted to replace mammoth meat with fish. How could this be done if there is no body of water or sea nearby? Primitive tribes had to go where they could exchange meat for fish, or one skin for another. This is how mutually beneficial trade arose. But what could be done when it was impossible to make such an exchange, or rather, one of the exchangers did not have a suitable product in stock? Then primitive people came up with a “measurement,” so to speak. It was believed that a product that was always necessary and impossible to do without could be exchanged for any thing, even those that were not needed at the moment. And further. How and how much and what could be exchanged, and most importantly, for how much? They came up with the following: the most popular and necessary goods were considered to be counted as one. This is how the concept of equivalent appeared. And the goods that were necessary for everyone and always - this is, as a rule, food, clothing, weapons for hunting - after a while they were called liquid.

But that's not all. After some time, primitive people began to do exactly what they liked best. For example, someone was very good at mending a hide, and someone was an excellent archer. But how could they make a mutually beneficial exchange if neither one nor the other needed at that moment, neither the skin, nor the weapons, nor the prey? And there wasn’t a suitable “equivalent” either? Then they came up with the idea of ​​leaving something interesting as collateral until the moment when the necessary exchange could be made. It could be an interesting stone, a metal nugget, a large carved bone, jewelry, etc. As soon as the exchangers had the necessary goods, they made an exchange, and one of them took the deposit, or left the deposit, adding the goods. Such collateral was considered a “universal” product, and, over time, such a concept as liquidity appeared.
Over time, it became clear that it is not always possible to exchange one product for another or leave a deposit. Subsequently, with the development of civilization, people realized that it was possible to create and agree among themselves that certain things could be exchanged for any product.

This is how people actually invented money. And their equivalent, soon, was considered to be something that was very difficult, something that was difficult to find or obtain, and to obtain which it was necessary to spend colossal labor. Ideally suited for this role were metals such as gold, silver, platinum, palladium, iridium, etc. And with the development of science such as chemistry, it was noticed that they also react poorly with an aggressive environment. Since then they began to be called noble. And it was customary to call money the commodity that, in a hidden form, implies all types of goods. And with such a tool you can do everything: make transactions, buy goods and services, conduct investment, holding and other types of activities.

Then paper money was invented, and in our modern age, various types of electronic payments appeared.

With the help of money we can conduct trade and exchange. We can use money to exchange our labor for any thing we need. Money is a measure of value, because with the help of money we can compare the value of different things. A person's possession of money is nothing more than a store of value and a basis for future payments.

In contact with

Money- one of the greatest human inventions. The origin of money is associated with 7 - 8 thousand BC, when primitive tribes had a surplus of some products that could be exchanged for other necessary products. Historically, livestock, cigars, shells, stones, and pieces of metal were used as a means of facilitating exchange, with varying degrees of success. But to serve as money, an item must be generally accepted by both buyers and sellers as a medium of exchange. Money is determined by society itself; everything that society recognizes as circulation is money. Indeed, money is a commodity that acts as a universal equivalent, reflecting the value of all other goods.

What are the main stages in the history of the development of money?

First stage- the appearance of money with random goods performing its functions; second phase- assigning gold the role of a universal equivalent (this stage was perhaps the longest); third stage— the stage of transition to paper or credit money; And last fourth stage— gradual displacement of cash from circulation, as a result of which electronic types of payments appeared.

Gold and silver as money

Gold and silver most fully met the above requirements, thus, in the process of the evolution of commodity exchange, a special, absolutely liquid commodity is singled out, used as a universal equivalent of the value of money. These commodities become gold and silver, an early form of metallic money.

Gold and silver appeared as money back in the 13th century BC. e. in the form of various ingots with a certain weight of metal. As a result of the further development of market relations, coins begin to be minted from metal - banknotes that have a form established by law and a full weight monetary content.

Coins made from a natural alloy of gold and silver (electrum) first appear in the state of Lydia in the 7th century BC. e. In Rus', coinage began to be minted in the 9th - 10th centuries. However, due to the lack of gold deposits in Kievan Rus, foreign ones were predominantly used - Arab and Byzantine coins made of gold and silver. Later, from about the 11th century, silver and copper ingots began to be used in domestic circulation. The most common was a silver bar weighing one pound (approximately 400 g), which had the name « » . But the “hryvnia” had a rather high value, so it was cut in half, into two equal parts, called « » , or “ruble hryvnia”.

Commodity money

The early form of metal money is characterized by the coincidence of the commodity value of the metal contained in the coins and their nominal value indicated on the obverse of the coin. This is one of the disadvantages commodity money. If their value as a commodity exceeds their value as money, then they will cease to function as money. Indeed, if, for example, a ruble coin had a silver (or gold, or some other) content worth, say, two rubles, then it would be very profitable to melt down the coin and sell it as an ingot. Therefore, despite the illegality of such actions, ruble coins would begin to disappear from circulation.

In this regard, from about the 15th century, metallic money began to lose its commodity basis. Metal money begins to be divided into full-fledged(whose face value corresponds to the value of the metal they contain) and inferior(face value is higher than the value of the metal contained). Currently, in no country in the world is metallic money valid.

History of paper money

Deserves special attention origin of paper money. Where did they come from? To answer this question it is necessary to turn again to history.

Soon after gold began to be used in transactions, it became apparent that it was inconvenient and unsafe for both buyers and traders to transport, weigh, and test the purity of gold each time a transaction was made. Therefore, the rule came into practice give gold to goldsmiths for safekeeping who have special storage rooms and are ready to provide them for a fee. Having received a gold deposit, the goldsmith gave the depositor receipt.

Soon, goods were exchanged for these receipts, which became an early form of paper money, and the goldsmiths themselves became the prototypes of modern bankers. Since the gold kept by goldsmiths in storerooms was rarely in demand, that is, it was not in circulation, we can say that the receipts were full-fledged money, since their quantity exactly corresponded to the amount of gold in the storage of goldsmiths.

This was until some inventive goldsmith, seeing that the amount of gold coming in exceeded the amount being withdrawn, began to issue receipts not backed by gold, giving loans at interest to merchants, manufacturers and consumers. This is how it was born fractional reserve banking system. These receipts were no longer full-fledged money. It is believed that the founders of banks and paper money were English goldsmiths. Subsequently, the right to issue paper money passed from private hands to the state.

In our country, paper money appeared in 1766 by decree of Empress Catherine II. At present, just like metal money, paper money in no country in the world has a commodity basis, that is, it is not exchanged for gold or other precious metals. metals.

The history of money is very interesting. The first money arose in ancient times, and has survived to this day, but in a completely different form. Wars, revolutions, changes of governments and overthrow of kings occurred because of money. Are they the engine of history? Or is their role limited only to purchasing power? To answer these questions, we will learn the history of the emergence of money, the path of its evolution and the history of its spread throughout the world.

Ancient times

History of money originates from the time of the existence of ancient tribes. But the money of those times was significantly different from the money of today. It was more likely not money, but a means of exchange. So, for example, in pastoral tribes money was cattle, in Pomeranian settlements money was fish, which was exchanged for bread and meat so necessary for the tribe. It is known that different nations had their own objects that served them as money:

In Mexico, cocoa beans were money;

In Canada, Alaska and Siberia, ancient ancestors used the skins of valuable animals as money;

Among some tribes of South America and on the islands of Oceania, seashells or pearls were money;

The tribes of New Zealand used stones with a hole in the middle instead of money.

In some places grain or salt served as money. The use of commodity money made it possible to exchange it with other tribes or use it for its intended purpose in one’s own household. But they were extremely inconvenient to use. Therefore, there was a need for another, more practical form of payment.

Cowries. Photo from shells-of-aquarius.com

The Afars, a warlike tribe inhabiting the Danakil Desert in northeastern Ethiopia, have a legend that their land was once extremely rich in gold. The Afars, basking in luxury, became arrogant and angered God. All their gold turned to salt, and the tribe instantly became poor. To this day it lives from hand to mouth, wandering with its skinny cattle through the meager pastures of Danakil. But the Afars believe that sooner or later they will atone for their guilt and God will turn salt into gold again.

However, salt turned out to be not much worse than gold: everyone needs it and is always in price, that is, it is liquid; can be stored for as long as desired without losing essential properties; easily divided (exchanged). So for the Afars, for a whole millennium (until the twentieth century), salt became the main means of exchange. For example, an Afar who raises sheep wants to buy milk from his neighbor who raises cows. However, the sheep have not yet had time to grow wool, so barter is impossible. He exchanges the milk for salt and is all the more pleased that, unlike milk, it will not turn sour and he can put it aside in reserve.

Salt is not a conventional commodity, unlike money, but a consumed one, so it is not yet a monetary system in the classical sense. But this is no longer a completely natural exchange, since merchants can accept salt not only as a product, but also to preserve wealth (vegetables will rot, meat will rot, but nothing will happen to the salt), and for subsequent use as a means of payment.

Gold has two important advantages over salt, both stemming from its rarity. First, it delivers the same value in a much smaller package, making it much more portable. Secondly, the risk that a new huge source of gold will be discovered (deposit or import) and its value will sharply decrease is much lower.

Food as currency

In the ancient agricultural societies of Mesopotamia, three millennia BC, barley was the most important commodity. The smallest "unit of change" was shekel- 180 barley grains (usually about 11 grams). Shekels of barley could express the value of any good or service.

Over time, the shekel became a universal measure of weight; it was used, in particular, to measure silver. In the laws of the Babylonian king Hammurabi (circa 18th century BC), the oldest surviving set of written laws, fines were specified in shekels of silver. The value of barley was highly dependent on the harvest, so silver was a much more stable "currency".

In feudal Japan until the 19th century, the main, so to speak, unit of wealth was koku- the amount of rice that can feed an adult for a year (about 278 liters, or about 150 kilograms). If a landowner was said to have 30 thousand koku, this did not mean that he had that much rice. It was the total value of all his assets - productive land, livestock, labor, reduced to the most understandable unit of measurement. Koku measured the wealth of even those estates where rice was not grown at all.

Among the nomads of the Eurasian steppes, cattle played the role of a universal equivalent: with its help they paid taxes and penalties, bought brides, and exchanged bread, tar, high-quality weapons and other necessary goods with sedentary neighbors.

All of these “natural currencies” had a common problem: they were extremely volatile, that is, their value relative to other goods fluctuated greatly throughout the year and depended on many natural factors (crop could be destroyed by rain or drought, livestock could die). In this sense, minerals were much more reliable. Gold and silver turned out to be ideal: they are quite common and at the same time quite rare, they do not corrode, do not oxidize, and are easy to recognize. For small transactions, copper was most often used: it is also quite chemically stable and widespread on all continents. From the use of metals as “natural currencies” by weight (in the form of sand or bars) there was one step left to coinage.

Slaves and shells

But the most famous example of commodity money is, of course, cowrie shells. They had two important advantages. Firstly, they are almost impossible to fake. Secondly, huge margins were provided by simply moving shells from point A to point B: say, in the Niger Delta, the most important trading hub of West Africa, they cost a thousand (!) times more than in the Maldives, where they were most mined.

Cowries were the most durable of the “natural currencies”: the first evidence of their use as a means of payment dates back to the middle of the 2nd millennium BC, and they were forced out of circulation only at the beginning of the 20th century. They were used as a means of payment throughout Africa, India, Indochina, the Pacific Islands and among North American Indians from the Pacific coast to the Great Lakes. And in China, at one time, coins were even banned (to stop counterfeiting), and cowries were the main means of payment. Even the traditional Chinese character for "money" originated from a stylized image of a seashell.

From the 16th to the 19th centuries, cowries were a key element of the slave trade system. Europeans bought them in the same Maldives for gold, for rice (which was brought from India) or for some other goods. Shells were transported to Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch ports in thousands of tons. Ships going to slave markets in the Niger Delta or Zanzibar often carried no cargo other than cowries. Slaves were driven mainly from the interior regions of Africa (Uganda, Congo, Zaire), where cowries were the most common “currency” and, of course, were much more expensive than on the coast.

The growing cotton and sugar cane plantations in the New World required more and more slaves. Accordingly, Europeans brought more and more cowries to Africa. The natural result of this was inflation. In the second half of the 19th century, so many shells became needed to purchase a shipment of slaves in the interior of Africa that the profit from resale of slaves to planters no longer covered the cost of transporting cowries. Thus began the decline of the slave trade, and with it the “shell economy.”

About five hundred years ago you could buy a slave for a dozen cowrie shell beads in Zanzibar. Nowadays, in Zanzibar, a string of such beads can be bought as a souvenir for a dollar or a dollar and a half.

Eternal values

Commodity money as a simple and reliable means of payment arises almost inevitably in any society where there is no established banking system. A textbook example is the Soviet economy during the period of collapse, when “normal” money was rapidly becoming cheaper and there was nothing to buy with it, and people willingly used vodka, cigarettes and similar enduring values ​​in mutual transactions. In prison, where money is simply prohibited, cigarettes usually play their role. Anyone who has read Jack London should remember that the heroes of his stories about Alaska almost never pay in dollars, preferring gold dust. The founding father of economics, Adam Smith, a Scot by birth, wrote in the 18th century that in his homeland, peasants often pay each other with nails: “ordinary” money still doesn’t have much to spend on anything, but they always nail something somewhere necessary.

Money made of metal

Gradually money becomes metallic. And in the seventh century BC, minted coins appeared. They are spreading quickly throughout the world. This is easy to explain, because... coins are convenient to store, transport, split and combine. They have high cost with low volume and weight.

In most countries, the metal used for minting coins was silver, copper or bronze. And only in Egypt and Assyria was gold used as money two millennia BC. With the growth of commodity-production relations, it became necessary to increase the value of the exchange equivalent. From this moment on, gold and silver become the main money.

Paper money

History of money received a new round of development with the advent of paper money. They appeared in 910 in China. And in Russia, the first paper money was introduced under Catherine II in 1769.

With the advent of banks, they became the custodians of money and basic values. When depositing money, a person received a certificate from the bank. It indicated how much money was in the banker's custody and the bearer of this certificate was supposed to receive a certain amount of money from the bank. This made it possible to pay not with coins, but with these certificates. A little time passed, and the certificates themselves began to be equated to real money. This is the history of the appearance of paper money. And the word “banknote” itself originates from the English words “bank note” and translated means “bank record”.

And if earlier the economic essence of paper money was the obligation to issue real money, now the banknotes themselves are the same money.

AUSTRALIA - DOLLAR

BHUTAN - NGULTRUM

JAPAN - YEN

The emergence of public central banks

The first such bank appeared in Sweden in 1661. The main tasks of the state central bank were control over banking operations in the country and responsibility for the state of the national currency, including its production.

Other countries were slow to follow Sweden's lead. For example, the central bank in France was founded 140 years later, and in the Russian Empire the State Bank appeared in 1860. It was only in 1913 that the Federal Reserve System was founded in the United States. Before its introduction, dollar bills were issued by individual American banks, and differed from each other in design and size.

The beginning of globalization

In 1944, the Bretton Woods International Conference was held, at which an agreement was adopted to link the dollar exchange rate to the gold rate and this continued until 1971. It was the dollar that became the international currency on which international trade was based. At the conference, it was decided to create the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. It was from the Bretton Woods Conference that the modern process of globalization of the whole world began.

Bank cards

In 1950, the world's first Diners Club credit card was issued to pay for restaurant visits. And in 1952, the American Franklin National Bank issued the first bank credit card.

Nowadays, bank cards won’t surprise anyone. History of money continues and gains new momentum. According to statistics, the average American currently has about ten plastic cards for various purposes.

Computers at the service of financiers

The year 1972 marked the involvement of computers in the financial sector. Thus, in the USA, a centralized electronic network is being created to record bank checks. And in 1973, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) was created. The creators of this system were 239 banks representing 15 countries. For the first time, the teletype was no longer used for interbank money transfers.

Beginning in 1977, personal computers became available for retail sale, heralding the computerization of various sectors of the economy and life, the creation of new forms of money, and the advent of the Internet.