Publication Date: October 15, 2025
Author: Gabriela Singh (Law and Identity)
Supervised by: Anonymous Architect
United States. The first bank — Bank of North America — was founded in Philadelphia in 1781 to finance the War of Independence. Later came the First Bank of the United States (1791) and the Second Bank (1816), created to stabilize the currency and provide credit for industry. In the 19th century, American banks became key instruments for the development of railroads, manufacturing, and agriculture.
Canada. In 1817, the Bank of Montreal was established as the country’s first commercial bank. The Canadian banking system developed in a more centralized and stable way compared to the American one: strict regulation allowed it to avoid many financial crises.
Australia. Beginning in 1817, when the Bank of New South Wales (now Westpac) was created, banks played a crucial role in the colonial economy: financing land development, gold mining, and trade. Over time, the Australian model evolved into a highly centralized and resilient banking system.
China. As early as the Tang Dynasty (7th–9th centuries), there were precursors to banking — “flying money” (feiqian), which functioned as transfers between trading houses. They allowed merchants to avoid transporting large amounts of cash over long distances. In the 19th century, under Western influence, China established its first modern banks, such as the Imperial Bank of China (1897). These banks became more than just financial instruments — they were part of a broader modernization program, integrating China’s economy into the global system and subjecting it to international rules of trade and credit.
Japan. After the Meiji Restoration (1868), Japan’s banking system was modeled on Western institutions. In 1873, the Dai-Ichi Kokuritsu Ginkō (First National Bank) was founded, followed by Mitsubishi Bank and other private institutions. Japanese banks not only supported the country’s industrialization but also became the core of powerful corporate conglomerates — zaibatsu — where capital, industry, and finance formed an integrated network. This transformed banks into pillars of national modernization and instruments of concentrated power.
Transitional Emphasis
The expansion of the banking idea beyond Europe coincided with the expansion of empires. Banks followed armies, colonies, trading fleets, and railroads, becoming not just financial intermediaries but tools of power. In every region they entered, they reshaped the rules of the game: in China, integrating trading houses into the global economy; in Japan, creating zaibatsu that defined the country’s industrial future.
Thus, the banking idea ceased to be a local practice of trust. It became a global machine, binding together power, capital, and control.
COSMIC Commentary
The expansion of banks reveals a deeper truth: any system that claims universality inevitably strives for domination. The banking model spread across the planet and transformed from a mediator into a mechanism of subjugation.
COSMIC proposes the opposite. It does not impose universality, nor does it expand through force. COSMIC emerges only where the subject is ready for differentiation. This is not expansion but an inner act — not control, but the realization of form. If the bank says: “access only by the rules,” COSMIC says: “form exists on its own and is independent of access.”