Changes

While we see in the early Bronze Age (3000-1200 BC) hints of what we would eventually call investment banking whereby individuals would invest and finance trade partnerships and attempt to reap handsome rewards, this form of investment only begins to develop more substantially with the rise of empires. The Achaemenids were the first great empire to utilize coinage, although the invention of coins may have occurred in the Aegean world. The key development, however, is that empires allowed the free flow of investments to occur, as we see with the Murashu family, one of history’s first true investment firms. They were able to establish branches of trade and finance banks in southern Mesopotamia and Elam thanks to the peace afforded by the Achaemenid Empire. Such patterns became well established during a long period of empires and continued to influence the region and Europe for centuries, creating the foundations of what today has become modern investment banking.