Exploring modern bank penetration: Evidence from early twentieth-century Netherlands

Abstract

We analyse the estate composition of the richest 30 per cent of people who died in the Netherlands in 1921 to find that households used a broad range of institutions to meet their financial demands. Goods and services were either paid in cash or settled periodically with suppliers. Despite the strong growth of commercial banking in the previous decades, households still made extensive use of peer-to-peer loans, with or without the added security of notarial contracts. Banks only possessed a competitive edge in savings accounts for small surpluses and current accounts, the latter used most frequently by business owners born after 1870. Distance to the nearest bank office did not matter for these people, but wealthy urbanites were more inclined to use banks than their counterparts in the countryside.