Money Banking and Public Finance

Historically, though overlapping at time, the evolution of money has been from commodity money to paper money, to bank money. In the west, the credit card serves increasingly for most transactions. Samuelson visualizes a stage when computerization will become very important and coins and notes would lose much of their utility. Money will continue to serve as a unit of account, but computer cards, central memory and data banks will record most transactions. Banking as a kind of business, is of recent origin. But traces of banking and banking institutions can be seen right from the ancient past. However, its form, scope and functions went on changing through time. The three main sources to which commercial banking operations can be traced are the merchant, the goldsmith and the moneylender.