The first Taula de canvi was created following a request of the city of Barcelona's main governing body, the
Consell de Cent, calling for the establishment of a public bank on 25 April 1400. It ceremonially started its operations on 20 January 1401, inside Barcelona's ''''.
Structure and governance The Taula's
charter, dated 1405 or 1412 depending on authors, is the oldest preserved public bank regulation. Its design remained essentially unchanged for 300 years until the early 18th century. The Taula was a fully owned operation of the city with a city guarantee of its deposits, and there is no evidence that it had
capital of its own. The city appointed the Taula's
taulers who worked on the table and its cashier for two-years fixed terms and paid their salaries. Other Taula officers, including its regent, chief of deposits,
credencer in charge of first bookings, and notary, were appointed for life. The Taula's coffers had six keys, of which two were held by each
tauler and two by the city councillors. The Taula was also subject to frequent inspection by municipal auditors. In 1609, the city council created the
Bank of the City of Barcelona (
Banc de la Ciutat) as an independent department of the municipal administration, to accept lower-quality
coins than were allowed under the Taula's regulation. In practice, that bank appears to have operated as an extension of the Taula rather than a separate let alone competing institution.
Operations The Taula's objective was to provide an efficient and stable central
deposit and
giro transfer system, and, in its initial decades of operations, to provide funding to the city. From 1413 it also served as
fiscal agent for the
Generalitat of Catalonia. It accepted both sight deposits and
term deposits, in
coin or
jewellery, from residents of the city or its immediate surrounding; deposits were transferable as long as that did not result in
overdraft, thus the taula's characterization as an early central bank.
Cheques were in use from the 1520s at the latest. The bank operated on its eponymous table, installed in Barcelona's and covered with a carpet decorated with the
arms of Barcelona. It was open every working day from 8 to 10am. From its inception the Taula was systemically significant. Its oldest surviving book records over 500 individual accounts. It kept the deposits of the
Generalitat, of the
Barcelona Cathedral chapter, of religious institutions, of trade bodies, of military orders, and of the
Aragonese monarchs. The Taula was granted a monopoly on certain types of deposits, e.g. those of minors. From 1446 to 1499 it also had a legal monopoly on the
clearing of
bills of exchange. It competed with private banks to attract deposits, but unlike these did not pay interest on sight deposits. The Taula suspended the convertibility of deposits in 1463-1468 during the
Catalan Civil War, 1640-1653 during the
Reapers' War, and 1706-1713 during the
War of the Spanish Succession; in the two latter episodes the
Banc de la Ciutat also suspended payments. In 1468, existing depositors were offered the option to convert to bonds of the city at 5 percent, or accept prolonged non-convertibility. After that restructuring and until the 17th century, lending to the city was prohibited. Following the
Siege of Barcelona (1713–14), the Taula continued to exist but in restricted form without
giro banking, while the
Banc was entirely separated from the city and brought under direct Spanish state control. Another episode of payments suspension occurred in 1812. The Taula's remaining activities were gradually discontinued or taken over by other institutions. It was eventually absorbed by the
Bank of Spain in 1853 and stopped paying its last staff in 1865. ==Other
Taules de canvi==