All things in life start somewhere. And this blog starts here as an extension of my interest in history and financial history in particular. I think I attracted this 'virus' in my first job back in 1989. I started working at the Postbank, which was then just privatized as a bank, independent from government. And I noticed the colleagues at the Postbank had a strong sense of pride and history. Through them I got to know about the Postal Savings Institutions, the history of the Postal Cheque and Giro Services and the Municipal Giro of Amsterdam and so on.
As the virus caught on I discovered that Amsterdam may pride itself as having founded the Amsterdamse Wisselbank for example, a giro-bank modelled after the Italian examples. And of course there is the Stock Exchange and the Dutch East India Company. And already in early days Amsterdam welcomed such famous visitors as John Law, who also left quite some traces in financial history.
While I am currently busy on contributing my fair share to the Dutch financial history (by writing a book on the development of the Dutch payment industry in the 21st century) I am also setting up a financial history tour in the centre of Amsterdam. Because what makes Amsterdam unique is that you can literally walk through financial history in a 2-3 hour tour. And as much as I enjoy sharing that history, I hope visitors will enjoy hearing and reading about it here.
So if you're coming to Amsterdam and you would be interested, drop me a note.
