Brief History of Investment Banking from the 19th Century to the Age of Corporate and Investment Banking

This article aims to put in a historical perspective the evolution of investment banking, the name that has become universal for the activities of investment banks and, often even more widely, wholesale banking, since the creation of large banks and investment banks in the second half of the 19th century until the crisis of 2008 when the corporate andiInvestment banking model became the dominant business model, on both sides of the Atlantic, to the detriment of the pure investment bank or broker-dealer model. Historically, the distinction between the activities of commercial banks and investment banks was based on the fact that the former provided short-term financing while the latter focused on long-term financing for governments and companies, through the issuance of shares and bonds, playing an intermediary role on the markets, the essence, in fact, of the investment banker business.