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Archive » September 2026 » Reflections on bank theory

Reflections on bank theory

Paolo Mottura
September 2026 - n. 9
Keywords: Banche, moneta, teoria della banca
Jel codes: G21, G28, E52

The literature compares two theories of banking. The first, known as the monetary theory, represents the bank’s typical activity as the joint production of credit and money: the bank grants credit by giving the customer the ability to spend its own specifically issued sight liabilities, which are universally accepted in payment. The second, by contrast, represents the bank as a credit intermediary that obtains third-party funds in the form of debt and transfers them, as loans, to customers requesting credit.The foundational concepts of the two theories could hardly be more distant. Each argument is supported by references to scholars in the field, from the origins of the debate onwards. This makes it possible to grasp the evolution of the economic thought underlying the theories in question, as well as its contingent motivations.Finally, brief consideration is given to the possible destabilising consequences arising from the anticipated introduction of new digital currencies, both public and private, and from the associated overcoming of the nearmonopoly regime of bank money.

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