Project description
Revealing the roots and routes of international banking
Banking, and in particular international banking, has served as a foundational element of the global financial system while also playing an ever-increasing role in our everyday lives. Surprisingly, not much is known about the formation and development of international banking networks. Moreover, there is a lack of information regarding how international transactions and interbank connections were managed, built and later developed into our current system. The EU-funded GloCoBank project aims to change this. It plans to compile and analyse a set of data and combine it with extensive archival research, thus creating a comprehensive data source. The project's results will provide a much more granular assessment of the patterns and dynamics of international banking.
Objective
The overall objective of GloCoBank is to analyse the changing shape of international banking networks across the 20th century using an innovative methodology that allows greater specificity and inclusion than ever before. The bilateral correspondent banking network that will be uncovered by GloCoBank was the structure on which the global financial system was built and on which the trade and specialization that drove global development was based, but we know very little about it. When merchants settled accounts across borders, they did so through transfers from the merchant’s bank to the customer’s bank. From the time of the telegraph in the late 19th century, the contraction of time and space was accomplished by sending telegraph messages from the buyer’s home bank to an agent in the seller’s country to transfer funds to the seller’s bank. These interbank connections remain the underlying architecture of the global payments system but we do not have a complete sense of how they were built, managed or how they changed over time. Existing literature on global payments relies on official data on capital flows that are exclusively available at a national level which prevents an analysis by type of bank, sub-national region, or more specific location. Moreover, these national data on bank flows are also consistently available for most countries only from 1960, which truncates our ability to assess the changing geography of international banking during periods of upheaval such as wars, economic crisis or depression. To date there has been no comprehensive data source to accomplish this. GloCoBank will create and analyse a new set of data and combine it with extensive archival research, which will allow a much more granular assessment of the patterns and dynamics of international banking and payments. The data will capture the links between thousands of individual banks involved in international payments through bilateral correspondent banking contracts across 130 years.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
ERC-ADG - Advanced Grant
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2019-ADG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
OX1 2JD Oxford
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.