This panels considers financial institutions that provided credit or savings accounts to foster a broader public ‘good’, and well as individual benefit. We examine three cases from the fifteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The chronological scope of the panel provides an opportunity to analyse a range of social, political, religious and economic contexts surrounding the provision of financial services promoting a broad public interest. And how these contexts shape the provisions of financial services that aim to benefit both individuals and society.
The panel provides a platform to critically assess the provision of credit and savings accounts by financial institutions for public and individual ‘good’. Tensions that arise in such provision are analysed. To what extent may financial institutions offering services that serve the public interest also be achieving commercial benefit? How much commercial benefit is acceptable, given the social aims and objectives of these institutions at foundation? What of the provision of personal gain to customer groups for whom services was not intended? To what extent can social and ethical aims of the founders of institutions be maintained over time?
The aim of the panel is to provide breadth of coverage in terms of chronology and depth in terms of a case study approach. All three papers tie their research closely to the theme of the conference and each embeds their analysis in the very particular context of the institutions considered. The presenters are from a range of disciplinary backgrounds (three out of four of are based in Business Schools and one in a School of Law) and includes a current PhD. student who would be attending the BHC for the first time. All are take a consultative and collaborative approach and have presented together before.
Firstly, the case of the Monte di Pietà, established in Perugia, Italy from the 1460s is explored. These institutions were founded to provide low-interest or interest-free loan options to economically disadvantaged individuals as a mechanism to alleviate short-term financial consumption needs. They were established with a set of moral imperatives, societal exigencies, and religious convictions particular to this Italian region in the second half of the fifteenth century. Secondly, savings banks in the early nineteenth century Britain are analysed. These banks were formed with the particular aim to help the working poor. Yet they were embroiled in recurrent debates about middle-class appropriation of services intended for poorer members of British society. Finally, British retail banks in the twentieth century are analysed. After 1945, these institutions opened savings accounts for children with free ‘gifts’ to promote the ‘habit’ of saving, for both individual and public benefit. All papers base their analysis on primary sources from the institutions studied, utilising written sources and physical artefacts.
Panel members
Victoria Barnes at School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast, UK (Reader of Commercial Law)
Jessica Lomas, Henley Business School, University of Reading, UK (PhD. Student)
Lucy Newton, Henley Business School, University of Reading, UK (Professor of Business History)
Linda Perriton, Stirling Management School, University of Stirling, UK (Professor of Human Resource Management)
Panel Chair
Professor Greame Acheson, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
Panel papers
1. Credit institutions as mechanisms to alleviate poverty: The case of Monte di Pietà (Perugia), Jessica Lomas
2. Legal change and financial efficacy: The impact of the 1844 Savings Bank Act on trust accounts and trusteeship, Linda Perriton presenting
3. Piggy banks, money boxes and saving stamps: how British retail banks used artefacts to encourage children’s savings ‘habit’, Victoria Barnes and Lucy Newton