How banks worked around year 1500 or so?

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How banks worked around year 1500 or so?

Been playing Assassin’s Creed recently and had a thought. How actually banks worked back then?

I mean a guy could show up and ask for a loan. Let’s say he wants 1000 for a week. All goes well -> the guy returns money with interest. But the other outcome is – the guy decides to move to another city or simply don’t go to the bank. How the bank would get its money back, considering that there were a lot less documents and such for each person? Probably some of them didn’t have an ID or some kind of an equivalent.

Wife suggested that bank didn’t have out loans to poor people at all because was impossible to know whether the guy returns money or not.

In: Economics

6 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Collateral most likely existed back then as it goes now.

I would imagine the bank would want to hold onto something you would want.

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