There is but little information available as to the kind of banks that existed in the earlier ages, or on what system they conducted their business. As most of the nations of antiquity subsisted chiefly on agriculture, they probably had little occasion for banks; for it is only in commercial countries that these institutions have attained to any high degree of prosperity. And as even the commercial nations of antiquity were unacquainted with joint-stock companies or commercial corporations, and had not discovered the use of paper-money or bills of exchange, the business of a banker, even among them, must have been somewhat different from that of a banker of the present day.

The merchants of those early times employed as money, gold and silver bullion; and received it and paid it away by weight. It is probable that the merchants would require that the precious metals they received should be of a certain degree of fineness. Thus when we read of a father in Israel weighing out as a payment 400 shekels of silver, current money with the merchant (Genesis XXIII, 16) - the phrase implies that the money current with the merchant was different from that in ordinary use.

After bullion was superseded by coin, and each nation had a coin of its own, the merchants would necessarily in the course of their business receive coins belonging to different nations, and hence would be applied to by strangers who wished to exchange their own money for the money of the country in which they sojourned. This would take place more particularly in those oriental countries whose inhabitants were accustomed in certain seasons to meet together for the celebration of public festivals.