Some years ago I set up a financial history tour/briefing 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 or check out my Twitter account.
The tour is about 2 hours and we will cover the Amsterdamse Wisselbank, a giro-bank modelled after the Italian examples. We will pass by the location of old and new Stock Exchange and the Dutch East India Company, while I will tell you about a famous visitor: John Law, who also left quite some traces in financial history as a founder of central banks. Of course we will also drop by the former building of the Dutch Central Bank (DNB) to discover that the success of DNB rests on the shrewd business instinct of a rich widow. We'll see the Mint (that was only used here briefly) and while we are at it, we won't forget the cashiers, the banks, the Postal Cheque and Giro-Services and of course the Municipal Giro of Amsterdam and its innovations.
If so desired it is also possible to do the tour by boat. Furthermore we have extended the tour with executive briefings on subjects related to the Dutch banking and/or payment sector. I have done this for example for a group of Swedish savings bankers. First we walked through (the history of) Amsterdam and then I brought them up to date with current developments in the Dutch financial sector. And on another occasion, when sharing my experience with the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, I reduced the walking tour element to focus on the briefing part. Which was all about learning lessons from the Dutch payments history to be able to better introduce new payment mechanisms in developing countries.
Have a look at the reviews over on Trip Advisor to get a further impression. And if you're interested in any variation of walking tour, briefing, boat tour or presentation, just contact me and we'll take it from there.
