120 free Banking trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This banking trivia quiz is about banks themselves: how they began, who ran them, what they invented and how they failed (for markets, investing and personal money questions, try our Finance quiz instead). It covers the temple lenders of Sumer, the Knights Templar and Medici Florence, the goldsmiths of London, the world's oldest bank in Siena, and the great central banks: the Riksbank, the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve, the ECB and the Bank of Japan. The easy questions are ones most people know: where the word 'bank' comes from, what the FDIC insures, what an ATM stands for and where the World Bank and IMF were born. From there it works through the innovations and the disasters: the first cash machine at Barclays Enfield, the first overdraft, pre-printed cheques, IBAN and SWIFT, Basel capital rules, Glass-Steagall and its repeal, the Bank of Amsterdam, the Rothschilds' Waterloo scoop, Nick Leeson and Barings, Northern Rock, the savings and loan crisis and the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. There are questions on the giants too: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and ICBC. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries for the banks, institutions and events involved before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Money-minded players may also like our Economics and Stock Market quizzes.
30 of 120 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01From which Old Italian word meaning 'table' does the word 'bank' derive?
Banco
It goes back to Old High German for bench or counter.
Q 02The word 'bankrupt' comes from the Italian 'banca rotta', meaning what?
Broken bench
The symbolic ruin of an insolvent trader.
Q 03What is the oldest existing retail bank in the world?
Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena
It was founded in 1472.
Q 04In which Italian city is the world's oldest bank headquartered?
Siena
It began as a mount of piety in 1472.
Q 05What is the world's oldest merchant banking house, founded around 1590?
Berenberg
It was founded by Flemish refugees in Hamburg.
Q 06Roughly when did the first prototype banks give grain loans in Assyria, India and Sumer?
Around 2000 BCE
Temple lenders followed in Greece and Rome.
Q 07Which medieval military order issued letters of credit to pilgrims from 1150?
The Knights Templar
It may have been the first use of bank cheques.
Q 08Which two Florentine families dominated banking before going bankrupt in the 1340s?
Bardi and Peruzzi
Both had branches across Europe.
Q 09Who founded the famous Florentine bank of 1397?
Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici
His son Cosimo took over in 1434.
Q 10Which accounting method did the Medici Bank help develop?
Double-entry bookkeeping
Debits and credits tracked in a general ledger.
Q 11Which two great banking families emerged in southern Germany in the 15th century?
The Fuggers and the Welsers
The Fuggers of Augsburg bankrolled emperors.
Q 12What did London goldsmiths issue in exchange for deposits of precious metal in the 17th century?
Receipts certifying quantity and purity
These receipts were an ancestor of banknotes.
Q 13The Bank of Amsterdam, founded in 1609, was the first public bank to do what?
Offer accounts not convertible to coin
Q 21Which institution was the first in Europe to successfully print its own banknotes?
Bank of Scotland
It still prints sterling notes today.
Q 22In what year did the Scottish Parliament establish Scotland's first bank?
1695
One year after the Bank of England.
Q 23Who set up the first overdraft facility, in 1728?
Royal Bank of Scotland
Merchant William Hogg was the customer.
Q 24Who is thought to have first personalised cheques with the account holder's name, in 1811?
Some call it the first true central bank.
Q 14What is the world's oldest surviving central bank?
Sveriges Riksbank
Established by the Riksdag in 1668.
Q 15Which private bank preceded the Riksbank in Sweden and collapsed after issuing too many notes?
Stockholms Banco
Its founder Johan Palmstruch was blamed.
Q 16In what year was the Bank of England established?
1694
It was the government's banker and debt manager.
Q 17Which Scottish trader proposed the national bank that became the Bank of England?
William Paterson
He suggested it in 1691.
Q 18What is the Bank of England's nickname?
The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street
From a 1797 James Gillray cartoon.
Q 19In what year was the Bank of England nationalised?
1946
Under the Attlee government.
Q 20Roughly how much gold did the Bank of England hold in its vaults as of 2016?
About 5,100 tonnes
It stores gold for around 30 other countries too.
Commercial Bank of Scotland
The name was printed vertically along the left edge.
Q 25From which Persian word does the 'check' in 'cheque' ultimately derive, via chess?
Shah, meaning king
'A check against forgery.'
Q 26The person who writes a cheque is known as what?
The drawer
The bank is the drawee.
Q 27Where was the world's first ATM installed, on 27 June 1967?
Barclays Bank, Enfield, London
It beat a Swedish machine by nine days.
Q 28Which engineer is credited with leading the team that invented the first cash machine?
John Shepherd-Barron
He worked for printing firm De La Rue.
Q 29What is an ATM commonly called in Canada?
An automated banking machine (ABM)
ATM is also common there.
Q 30What are cash machines not operated by a financial institution called?
White-label ATMs
About 3.5 million ATMs existed worldwide in 2015.