Men and Money – A Question of Confidence

Emma’s fashion post yesterday mentioned that there’s some good content in the BBC Archive. If you haven’t spotted it yet, the archive is gradually opening up some fascinating collections, into which I think we’ll be dipping from time to time.

The Men and Money series was a glimpse into banking in Britain first aired in 1964. This, the second episode, deals with confidence in banks and bankers.

There’s something mildly alarming about a financial system and large and highly developed as the one in Britain. The structure looks solid enough but the foundations are mysterious.

Money doesn’t mean gold. It doesn’t even mean pound notes, since these are pumped out by the Bank of England whenever there’s a shortage. Money, in the modern sense, means credit and the one thing that sustains the system is confidence in this credit. People trust banks and the banks trust the government.

One particular highlight is the sequence, starting at 10m40s, about ingenious (and frankly terrifying) experimental methods of preventing bank robberies. Even more interesting, in a world into which Nick Leeson had not yet been born, is the story (at 35 minutes in) of the banking crisis of 1890 in which Barings Bank was saved “and still flourishes”.

If you enjoyed that as much as I did, the archive contains all six episodes of the Men and Money series.