What was the organizational structure and internal division of labor in ancient (e.g., Qing Dynasty) money changers?

There are many similarities between modern commercial banks and ancient moneychangers, such as depositing money on behalf of the bank, and cashing in different places, but there are also great differences. The money bank is a transitional product in the process of applying gold and silver as the mainstream currency, and regardless of the extent to which the money stamps it issues eventually reach in the circulation of commodities, it still uses gold and silver as the base currency. Even if the money ticket can directly buy physical, it is still only debit and not money, and can not replace the basic status of gold and silver.

Although the issue of money bills in the later become the biggest wealth of the money bank, although the money bank also with the help of lending profit, but the attention of the money bank's function is still for the circulation of gold and silver currency to provide the greatest convenience.

The main purpose of the commercial bank is not to facilitate the circulation of money, but to bring together the folk idle money investment profit, which is the most essential difference between it and the money changers. In ancient times, people put gold and silver and other currencies deposited in the bank, the main purpose is to facilitate the carrying and use, so the bank charges a fee is reasonable, this fee includes the risk of custody and long-distance transportation costs, can be recognized by everyone. Modern people put their money in the bank, closer to low-risk, low return investment, the bank not only should not charge people any fees, and must give a certain degree of return, this is a commercial bank must recognize the position.

It is not difficult to find in the case of gold and silver and other heavy metals as the mainstream currency, the money changer's profit margin is how lucrative and attractive, first of all, the agent custody, transportation, there are good reasons to charge storage fees and off-site access fees, although in the money changer is large enough when the transportation risk is almost zero, but people know clearly that they are long-distance carrying a great deal of risk, so this aspect of the charge is very easy to get people's approval.

The second is the moderate investment, that is, in the premise of not triggering the risk of payment, occupy a certain proportion of the customer's funds, this proportion can be improved with the improvement of the reputation of the money changers, this point makes the money changers than any investor has a greater advantage to seize the business opportunities. That's why ancient money changers usually have quality industries as a guarantee of credibility.

The third is that the circulation of money stamps allows the money changers to increase the proportion of customers' money that can be occupied further. The circulation of money certificates meant that customers who deposited money withdrew cash (gold and silver) less often, allowing the money changers to use more, safer, and longer-term use of customers' money, which then became almost the money changers' own funds.

Fourth, when the circulation of money bills reaches a certain level, the money changers can use money bills relative to the better portability of the heavy currency, to seek and realize the quasi-money status of money bills. At this time, the money changers can even directly use their own issue of money to meet the demand for more funds, so to a large extent, the money changers can call the funds even more than it actually owns the funds of the customers.

The biggest profit margin of the money changers lies in the maximum safe occupation of the customer's funds. Although the commercial banks can not profit from the money portability through escrow and transportation, but in the rest of the three aspects, they can still reduce the circulation of the cash (banknotes) through various ways, so as to reduce the proportion of the customer's withdrawals, and to a large extent, the commercial banks have a greater advantage than the money changers.

First, the idle funds accumulated in the form of passbooks can be invested profitably in appropriate proportions, and this aspect is close to the second means of profitability of the money changers.

Second, the bank gives the passbook, check, token card is close to the status of the money ticket, the same as the money ticket to obtain a greater degree of customer money occupation, in fact, due to the reasons of the national policy to support the check than the money bank money ticket has a more solid quasi-currency status. This is equivalent to a combination of the third and fourth means of profitability of the ancient money changers.

Third, through the overdraft license to form a virtual currency, expanding their own funds in the circulation of goods in the sphere of influence, the equivalent of a disguised increase in the amount of currency issued, the fourth than the money changer profit more pure, more direct.

In the calculation of the monetary aggregate, the monetary aggregate is divided into multiple levels: cash is M0, cash plus passbook is M1....

When calculating the monetary aggregate, it is divided into several levels: cash is M0, cash plus passbook is M1, and cash plus passbook is M1..., strictly speaking, the real monetary aggregate is only M0, and the other so-called financial products, such as passbooks, checks, and other financial assets, similar to the bank's money bills, although they can play a quasi-currency role, are all essentially borrowing of cash, and are all debts.

In this sense, the monetary aggregates other than the cash aggregates are equivalent to the debt aggregates of the society.