Origin of the word

Silver drachm coin from Trapezus, 4th century BC

The name bank derives from the Italian word banco "desk/bench", used during the Renaissance by Jewish Florentine bankers, who used to make their transactions above a desk covered by a green tablecloth.^[2] However, there are traces of banking activity even in ancient times.

In fact, the word traces its origins back to the Ancient Roman Empire, where moneylenders would set up their stalls in the middle of enclosed courtyards called macella on a long bench called a bancu, from which the words banco and bank are derived. As a moneychanger, the merchant at the bancu did not so much invest money as merely convert the foreign currency into the only legal tender in Rome—that of the Imperial Mint.^[3]

The earliest evidence of money-changing activity is depicted on a silver drachm coin from ancient Hellenic colony Trapezus on the Black Sea, modern Trabzon, c. 350–325 BC, presented in the British Museum in London. The coin shows a banker's table (trapeza) laden with coins, a pun on the name of the city.

In fact, even today in Modern Greek the word Trapeza (Τράπεζα) means both a table and a bank.