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The international banking system is an enigma. There are more than 30.000 different banks world wide, and they hold unbelievable amounts of assets. The top 10 banks alone account for roughly 25 trillion US-Dollars. Today, banking can seem very complex, but originally, the idea was to make life simpler. 11th century Italy was the centre of European trading. Merchants from all over the continent met to trade their goods, but there was one problem: too many currencies in circulation. In Pisa, merchants had to deal with seven different types of coins and had to exchange their money constantly. This exchange business, which commonly took place outdoors benches, is where we get the word "bank" from; from the word "banco", Italian for "bench". The dangers of travelling, counterfeit money and the difficulty of getting a loan got people thinking. It was time for a new business model: home brokers started to give credit to businessmen, while genevese merchants developed cashless payments. Networks of banks spread all over Europe, handing out credit even to the church, or European kings. What about today ? In a nutshell, banks are in the risk management business. This is a simplified version of the way it works. People keep their money in banks and receive a small amout of interest. The bank takes this money, and lends it out at much higher interest rates. It's a calculated risk, because some of the lenders will default on their credit. This process is essential for our economic system, because it provides ressources for people to buy things like houses, or for industries to expand their businesses and grow. So banks take funds that are unused by savers, and turn them into funds society can use to do stuff. Other sources of income for banks include accepting saving deposits, the credit card business, buying and selling currencies, custodian business and cash management services. The main problem with banks nowadays is, that a lot of them have abandoned their traditional role as providers of long-time financial products, in favour of short-time gains that carry much higher risks. During the financial boom, most major banks adopted financial constructs that were barely comprehensable and did their own trading in habit to make fast money, and earn their executives and traders millions in bonuses. This was nothing short of gambling and damaged whole economies and societies. Like back in 2008, when banks like Leeman Brothers gave credit to basically anyone who wanted to buy a house, and thereby put the bank in an extremely dangerous risk position. This led to the collapse of the housing market in the US and parts of Europe, causing stock prices to plummet, which eventually led to a global banking crisis, and one of the largest financial crises in history. Hundreds of billions of dollars just evaporated. Millions of people lost their jobs and lots of money. Most of the world's major banks had to pay billions in fines and bankers became some of the least trusted professionals....