Haute Banque


Haute Banque refers to the network of private bankers which dominated international finance during much of the 19th century, exemplified by the Rothschild family and including numerous other European banking families. Its influence declined in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as it became marginalized by the rise of universal banks and central banks.
The expression is particularly associated with 19th-century Parisian banking networks, many of whose members were Protestant or Jewish. This use is not exclusive, however, and "Haute Banque" has been used to describe the age of European private banking hegemony more broadly.

History

The Haute Banque emerged in the 18th century from the rise of long-distance commerce, in which the merchant bankers provided payment and credit services to other merchants. All Haute Banque houses engages in arbitrage between the respective markets for gold and silver under the bimetallism regime that prevailed in France until the 1870s. In the second half of the 19th century, the Haute Banque was increasingly challenged by joint-stock banks with wholly different deposit-based funding less dependent on the markets for precious metals.

Examples

Cases of Haute Banque in Paris include the following families and individuals: