Gentlemanly Bankers Adopt a New Set of Manners

Abstract

This chapter explores changes in bank organizational cultures, up to the 1980s. Notable by their absence, the British banks played little direct role in personal financial and credit market, until the 1960s when forces conspired to encourage their change. While American banks had made substantial inroads into the personal finance sector since the 1920s, it was not until two decades after WWII that the British banks began a massive transformation, reaching out to the country’s unbanked.