Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T05:22:34.177Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Collusion and Competition in Colonial Economies: Banking in British West Africa, 1916–1960

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

Gareth Austin  and
Chibuike Ugochukwu Uche
Gareth Austin
Affiliation:
Gareth Austin teaches African and comparative economic history in the Department of Economic History at the London School of Economics and Political Science
Chibuike Ugochukwu Uche
Affiliation:
Chibuike Ugochukwu Uche is professor of banking and financial institutions and dean of the faculty of business administration at the University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the collusion between the only two major banks to operate in British West Africa for most of the colonial period after 1916, Barclays and the Bank of British West Africa. The companies' records reveal that the alliance was more far-reaching than has previously been shown, escalating to include not only comprehensive price-fixing but also restrictions on the products offered. The article considers the reactions of African and European customers and the colonial governments, and analyzes the motives that sustained the collusion for so long and the political circumstances that permitted it. The arrangement was partly a defensive response to a perception that the market was too small for full rivalry, but there was a rent-seeking element too. Finally, the article explores the implications of the bank alliance for the broader economies, reflecting on the relation between the security that the banks achieved through their agreements and their very cautious lending policies.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 81 , Issue 1 , Spring 2007 , pp. 1 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Bauer, P. T., West African Trade (Cambridge, 1954), 180Google Scholar; Hopkins, A. G., An Economic History of West Africa (London, 1973), 201Google Scholar. Jones, Geoffrey, British Multinational Banking, 1830–1990 (Oxford, 1993), 203, 383Google Scholar, drawing on Barclays' papers, briefly mentions specific agreements.

2 Hopkins, Economic History, 201.

3 Crossley, Sir Julian and Blandford, Sir John, The DCO Story: A History of Banking in Many Countries, 1925–1971 (London, 1975), 72, 257Google Scholar; Fry, Richard, Bankers in West Africa: The Story of the Bank of British West Africa Limited (London, 1976), esp. 91–93,143–46Google Scholar.

4 Howard, Rhoda, Colonialism and Underdevelopment in Ghana (London, 1978), 132–39Google Scholar; Olanrewaju, S. A., “The Infrastructure of Exploitation: Transport, Monetary Changes, Banking, etc.,” in Falola, Toyin, ed., Britain and Nigeria: Exploitation or Development? (London, 1986), 74–76Google Scholar.

5 See notes 11, 50, 76.

6 The coverage of African colonies in studies of individual multinational banks is very brief, presumably because most of their business lay elsewhere. See, e.g., Ackrill, Margaret and Hannah, Leslie, Barclays: The Business of Banking, 1690–1996 (New York, 2000)Google Scholar.

7 Mars, J., “The Monetary and Banking System and the Loan Market of Nigeria”, in Perham, M., ed., The Economics of a Tropical Dependency. Vol. 2: Mining, Commerce, and Finance in Nigeria (London, 1948)Google Scholar, and especially Newlyn, W. T. and Rowan, D. C., Money and Banking in British Colonial Africa (Oxford, 1954)Google Scholar.

8 Nigeria and Ghana had 93.7 percent of the estimated population for 1959. See Singer, H. W., “Demographic Factors in Subsaharan Economic Development,” in Herskovits, Melville J. and Harwitz, Mitchell, eds., Economic Transition in Africa (London, 1964), 253Google Scholar.

9 On the latter, see Byfield, Judith A., The Bluest Hands: A Social and Economic History of Women Dyers in Abeokuta (Nigeria), 1890–1940 (Portsmouth, N.H., 2002)Google Scholar. The best overview remains Hopkins, Economic History, 167–292.

10 See the acknowledgement at the beginning of this article.

11 The literature on European firms in colonial Africa is surveyed by Hopkins, A. G., “Big Business in African Studies,” Journal of African History 28 (1987): 119–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar. More recent contributions on West Africa include David Fieldhouse, Merchant Capital and Economic Decolonization: The United Africa Company 1929–1980 (Oxford, 1994)Google Scholar and Deutsch, Jan-Georg, Educating the Middlemen: A Political and Economic History of Statutory Cocoa Marketing in Nigeria, 1936–1947 (Berlin, 1995)Google Scholar. Banking in British West Africa is put in a broader context in Geoffrey Jones's important study of British banking multinationals. See Jones, British Multinational Banking.

12 Capie, Forrest and Billings, Mark, “Evidence on Competition in English Commercial Banking,” Financial History Review 11 (2004): 69–103CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Montieth, Kathleen E. A., “Competition between Barclays Bank (DCO) and the Canadian banks in the West Indies, 1926–45,” Financial History Review 7 (2000): 67–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 See Uche, Chibuike Ugochukwu, “Foreign Banks, Africans, and Credit in Colonial Nigeria, C.1890-1912,” Economic History Review 52 (1999): 669–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 BBWA Papers, Ms 28515, Report of the 23rd annual general meeting, held on 11 July 1917. Here and hereafter, “Ms” indicates the call number of a BBWA file.

15 Ms 28623/15, Bekwai Branch Annual Report, 31 Mar. 1922.

16 Ms 28606, Head Office Circular Letter [hereafter CL] 391, Couper to branch managers, 12 May 1924.

17 Ms 28606, CL 426, Couper to branch managers, 22 Sept. 1925.

18 Ms 28606: CL 426, Couper to branch managers, London 22 Sept. 1925.

19 MS 28535/2 “Heads of Agreement” between Barclays DCO and BBWA, 22 Oct. 1926 (minuted with handwritten confirmation of acceptance by Barclays in their letter of 22 Oct. 1926); Ms 28515, Report of the 33rd AGM held on 23 June 1927.

20 MS 28606, CL 440, Couper to branch managers, 17 Jan. 1927.

21 Barclays Bank Archive, BBA 80/357, “Agreement with the Bank of British West Africa Limited.” Here and hereafter, BBA indicates the call number of the Barclays DCO file.

22 BBWA Papers, Ms 28606, CL 488, Paterson to branch managers, 16 May 1933.

23 Ms 28606, CLs 497, 500, 503, 505, 509 and 513, for the successive renewals from 1934–5 to 1939–40.

24 Austin, Gareth, Labour, Land and Capital in Ghana: From Slavery to Free Labour in Asante, 1807–1956 (Rochester, N.Y., 2005), 296, 299Google Scholar.

25 BBWA Papers, Ms 28606, CL 482 and 484, respectively, 17 Oct. and 12 Dec. 1932. There was a further cut in theirate on fixed deposits for “one year and upwards” in Nov. 1933 (CL 493).

26 Barclays Bank Archive, BBA 80/3557, memo by H. R. Bradfield, assistant general manager of Barclays (DCO), 9 Map. 1931; Watson of BBWA to Bradfield, 19 Mar. 1931.

27 BBWA Papers, Ms 28606, CL 496, Paterson to branch managers, 6 Jan. 1934. Cf. BBA 80/357 Watson of BBWA to Bradfield of Barclays, 27 Mar. 1931.

28 Ms 28606, various CLs.

29 Ms 23538, text of agreement headed “Co-operation Between Banks in West Africa,” between BBWA and Barclays DCO, 1 Jan. 1945.

30 Ms 23538, “Co-operation Between Banks in West Africa,” 1 Jan. 1945, para. 4g. The reason for the restriction is set out in para. 4i.

31 Ms 23538, “Co-operation Between Banks in West Africa,” 1 Jan. 1945.

32 Ms 23538, chief accountant's department to curator of [the company] museum, 3 Feb. 1971; cf. Fry, Bankers in West Africa, 146. BBWA, renamed the Bank of West Africa in 1957, merged with Standard Bank of South Africa in 1966 to become Standard Bank of West Africa.

33 Barclays Bank Archive, BBA 11/2105, esp. Barclays DCO assistant general manager to Ghana district manager, London, 6 Nov. 1958; and BBWA to Barclays DCO, London, 14 Oct. 1959, and Barclays DCO assistant general manager to Ghana and Sierra Leone directors, Barclays DCO, London, 6 Dec. 1960.

34 BBWA papers, Ms 23538, agreement headed “Co-operation Between Banks in West Africa,” 1 Jan. 1945.

35 Barclays Bank Archive, BBA 11/835, memo, by E. J. McQuinn, 27 Feb. 1956; and “Memorandum to the General Managers,” by the same writer, 29 Feb. 1956.

36 Bank of England Archive, OV68/1, report by G. D. Paton, “The Business of Banking in Nigeria,” 25 Oct. 1948; OV69/1, report by G. D. Paton, “Banking Conditions in the Gold Coast,” 4 Dec. 1948; Gold Coast Government, Report by Sir Cecil Trevor on Banking Conditions in the Gold Coast and on the Question of Setting up a National Bank (Accra, 1951)Google Scholar; Greaves, I da, Colonial Monetary Conditions (Great Britain, Colonial Office, 1953)Google Scholar; Nigeria, , Report by Mr J. B. Loynes on the Establishment of a Nigerian Central Bank, the Introduction of a Nigerian Currency and other Associated Matters (Lagos, 1957)Google Scholar. Dr Greaves was an independent economist, whose report was prepared for the Colonial Economic Research Committee. It is possible that Trevor and Greaves suspected the existence of a far-reaching secret pact between the pacts, but if so, presumably they lacked the evidence to confirm it. Loynes found it possible to detect—other than in “remittance and other charges”—“keen competition between them” (the expatriate banks). Nigeria (Loynes), Report, 10.

37 Cf. Mercer, Helen, Constructing a Competitive Order: The Hidden History of British Antitrust Policies (Cambridge, U.K., 1995), 9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Hirschman, Albert O., Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States (Cambridge, Mass., 1970)Google Scholar.

39 Figures from Jones, British Multinational Banking, appendix 5.1.

40 Newlyn and Rowan, Money and Banking, 96–122; Hopkins, A. G., “Economic Aspects of Political Movements in Nigeria and in the Gold Coast, 1918–39,” Journal of African History 7 (1966): 133–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Austin, Gareth, “Indigenous Credit Institutions in West Africa, c.1750–1960,” in Austin, and Sugihara, Kaoru, eds., Local Suppliers of Credit in the Third World, 1750–1960 (London), 93–159Google Scholar; Uche, Chibuike Ugochukwu, “Credit Discrimination Controversy in British West Africa: Evidence from Barclays (DCO),” African Review of Money, Finance and Banking 20: 87–106Google Scholar. On the nature of the complaint, from Africans outside as well as inside the indigenous banking movement, see further Gold Coast [Trevor], Report, paras. 46,124; Bauer, West African Trade, 183.

41 Austin, “Indigenous Credit Institutions.”

42 Ibid.

43 BBWA papers, Ms 28606, CL 396, Couper to branch managers, 22 Sept. 1925.

44 Barclays Bank Archive, BBA 80/357 “Agreement with the Bank of British West Africa Limited,” p. 2.

45 BBWA papers, Ms 28760, “International Bank Mission.”

46 Ms 28647/2, “Summary—African Accounts—31st March 1960.”

47 Decker, Stephanie, “Decolonising Barclays Bank DCO? Corporate Africanisation in Nigeria, 1945–69,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 33: 3 (2005): 424CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 Howard, Colonialism and Underdevelopment, 134–35.

49 For the agreement, see BBWA papers, Ms 28535/3, 4 Aug. 1920.

50 See Bauer, West African Trade, 77–79; Southall, Roger J., “Polarisation and Dependence in the Gold Coast Cocoa Trade, 1897–1938,” Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana 16, no. 1 (1975): 93–115Google Scholar; Howard, Colonialism and Underdeuelopment, 94–145. During the First World War, an attempt by the big firms to engross scarce shipping provoked intense complaints from other shippers, both European and African, but what made the situation worth protesting was that the outcome depended on government decisions (over allocating space). See Yearwood, Peter J., “The Expatriate Firms and the Colonial Economy in Nigeria in the First World War,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 26, no. 1 (1998): 49–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 Barclays Bank Archive, BBA 80/3551, bank internal report, “The United Africa Company Limited,” 3 May 1930. See further, Okigbo, P. N. C., Nigeria's Financial System (Harlow, U.K., 1981), 83Google Scholar.

52 The West African Currency Board (est. 1912) had the prime functions of exchanging sterling and colonial West African pounds (whose issue it supervised), guaranteeing convertibility and managing the colonies' reserves.

53 Fry, Bankers in West Africa, 144–45.

54 Ibid., 83. Fry states, without giving details, “In the 1950s the UAC actively helped the Bank [BBWA] to expand into the areas from which the company was gradually withdrawing.” Fry, Bankers in West Africa, 145.

55 Britain, Great (Colonial Office), Report of the Commission on the Marketing of West African Cocoa (London, 1938)Google Scholar: the Nowell report. The colonial administration in Lagos and London were also unsympathetic to the First World War shipping ring (see note 50 above). Again, the context was one of strong public protest, albeit less extreme than in the 1937–38 case, but in the more sensitive context of wartime (Yearwood, “Expatriate Firms”).

56 On the United Kingdom, see Mercer, Constructing a Competitive Order, 8–35; Jones, Geoffrey, “Competition and Competitiveness in British Banking, 1918–71,” in Jones, Geoffrey and Kirby, Maurice, eds., Competitiveness and the State: Government and Business in Twentieth-Century Britain (Manchester, 1991)Google Scholar. On West Africa, the classic study by Bauer still provides the best analysis. See West African Trade, esp. 89–191.

57 Jones, “Competition,” 126–27; Capie and Billings, “Evidence,” 69–70.

58 Cf. Bostock, Frances, “The British Overseas Banks and Development Finance in Africa after 1945,” Business History 38 (1991): 162Google Scholar.

59 National Archives of Nigeria, Enugu: Owdist 1/13/102, manager, Barclays Bank, Aba, to district officer, Owerri, Aba, 24 Sept. 1928.

60 Barclays Bank Archive, BBA 11/835; Uche, Chibuike Ugochukwu, “Banking Development in Pre-Independence Nigeria: A Study in Regulation, Control and Politics” (Ph.D. diss., London School of Economics, 1997), 87Google Scholar.

61 Nigeria (Loynes), Report, 10. On this bank see Newlyn and Rowan, Money and Banking, 97–119.

62 Barclays Bank Archive, BBA 11/835, memo by E. J. McQuinn, 24 Feb. 1956.

63 Ibid., memo, by E. J. McQuinn, 27 Feb. 1956; cf. memo, by the same writer, 29 Feb. 1956.

64 Nationalist politicians were anyway strongly critical of the commercial banks and other aspects of the financial system. See Stockwell, Sarah, “Instilling the ‘Sterling Tradition’: Decolonization and the Creation of a Central Bank in Ghana,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 26, no.2 (1998): 100–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65 Bank of England Archive, OV 67/1, 202, “West African Currency,” memo by R. N. Kershaw, Bank of England, 19 Dec. 1951, quoted by Stockwell, “Instilling the ‘Sterling Tradition,’” 111.

66 Barclays Bank Archive, BBA 80/3551, bank internal report, “The United Africa Company Limited,” 3 May 1930.

67 Barclays Bank Archive, “History of Barclays Bank DCO 1945–65,” compiled by Leslie A. Borer (typescript), vol. 2, p. 921; cf. Crossley and Blandford, The DCO Story, 256–57.

68 See, e.g., BBA 11/1027, 1028, 1174, on the expansion in the years straddling Ghanaian independence (1957), 1955–59. For Barclays in Nigeria, see Decker, “Decolonising Barclays Bank?” 423–24.

69 Killick, Tony, “The Monetary and Financial System,” in Birmingham, Walter, Neustadt, I. and Omaboe, E. N., eds., A Study of Contemporary Ghana. Vol. 1: The Economy of Ghana (London, 1966), 298Google Scholar.

70 Nigeria (Loynes), Report, 10; Decker, “Decolonising Barclays Bank?”: 423.

71 We examine this episode, and its implications for the issue of bank conservatism, in a separate paper. See Gareth Austin and Chibuike Ugochukwu Uche, “Colonial Banks and African Customers: The Origins of Life Insurance in British West Africa,” forthcoming.

72 Bostock, “British Overseas Banks and Development Finance,” 163–65.

73 Ibid., 170.

74 Ibid., 170–71.

75 Hopkins, Economic History, 201.

76 This is documented, and its significance for economic development is debated, in Davies, P. N., “The Impact of the Expatriate Shipping Lines on the Economic Development of British West Africa,” Business History 19, no. 1 (1977): 3–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Howard, Colonialism and Underdevelopment, 116–27; Olukoju, Ayodeji, “Elder Dempster and the Shipping Trade of Nigeria During the First World War,” Journal of African History 33, no. 2 (1992): 255–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Olukoju, , “‘Getting Too Great A Grip’: European Shipping Lines and British West African Lighterage Services in the 1930s,” Afrika Zamani, no. 9/10 (2001-2002): 19–40Google Scholar; Sherwood, Marika, “Elder Dempster and West Africa, 1891–c.1940: The Genesis of Underdevelopment?” International Journal of African Historical Studies 30, no. 2 (1997): 253–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

77 Public Record Office, U.K., C096/724, memo, by G. Creasy, 3 Dec. 1935 and subsequent correspondence. Officials in London and Accra were unable to establish why the ban had been introduced, but imagined that “the then Government was fearful that local Banking Companies might be formed which would be of no substance and would bring ‘innocent depositors’ down with them in their fall,” ibid. Having been reminded of the restriction, however, the government did not remove it.

78 BBWA papers, Ms 28535/1, “Agreement between the Banque de l'Afrique Occidentale and Bank of British West Africa, Limited,” 8 Apr. 1913.

79 Jones, British Multinational Banking, 482.

80 Bauer, West African Trade, 181.

81 Greaves, Colonial Monetary Conditions, 47.

82 Gold Coast [Trevor], Report, para. 123; cf. Bauer, West African Trade, 181–82; IBRD, The Economic Development of Nigeria (Baltimore, 1955), 155Google Scholar.

83 Greaves, Colonial Monetary Conditions, 47.

84 Bauer, West African Trade, 182–83.

85 Greaves, Colonial Monetary Conditions, 47.

86 Economic rents are incomes above what would be obtainable in the next most remunerative use of the resources concerned; ultimately, surpluses above the returns that would accrue in a perfect market.

87 Decker, “Decolonising Barclays Bank?” 424–27.

88 BBWA Papers, Ms 28606, CL 497, Paterson to branch managers, February 1934.

89 Jones, British Multinational Banking, 481, cf. 188.

90 Greaves, Colonial Monetary Conditions, 34.

91 Calculated from Jones's true profits series (Jones, British Multinational Banks, 429–30), true profits being defined as “net published profits before transfers to or from inner reserves.” Ibid., 419. The profits of Barclays DCO grew even faster over these years, but the figures are far from being for British West Africa alone. Ibid., 432–33.

92 On some of the theoretical possibilities, see Tirole, Jean, The Theory of Industrial Organization (Cambridge, Mass., 1988)Google Scholar.

93 BBWA papers, Ms 28515, report of the 18th annual general meeting, held 8 June 1912. Strictly, Nigeria comprised two colonies in 1912, before they were merged in 1914.

94 Ibid. Report of the 23rd AGM, held 11 July 1917.

95 Fry, Bankers in West Africa, 92.

96 Barclays Bank Archive, BBA 80/3277, “Bank of British West Africa: Notes of Interview between Sir Roy Wilson and Sir John Caulcutt,” by the latter, 27 Nov. 1934. See also Fry, Bankers in West Africa, 143.

97 BBA 80/3277, “Note of Interview between Sir Roy Wilson and Sir John Caulcutt,” by the latter, 3 Oct. 1935.

98 BBA 80/3277, “Note of Interview between Mr. H. L. M. Tritton, Sir John Caulcutt and Sir Roy Wilson,” by Tritton, 3 Oct. 1935.

99 Fry, Bankers in West Africa, 144.

100 BBA 80/3363, “Bank of British West Africa Ltd.” We are grateful to Larysa Bolton, Barclays Group archivist, for help in establishing the approximate timing of this undated document.

101 Ibid.

102 For a succinct account, see Southall, “Polarisation and Dependence,” 99–101.

103 Okigbo, Nigeria's Financial System, 83.

104 Greaves, Colonial Monetary Conditions, 45.

105 IBRD, Economic Development, 152.

106 Greaves, Colonial Monetary Conditions, 45.

107 Newlyn and Rowan, Money and Banking, 81.

108 Bostock, “British Overseas Banks and Development Finance,” 160–61.

109 Ibid., 78.

110 Killick, “Monetary and Financial System,” 308.

111 Cowen, M. P. and Shenton, R. W., “Bankers, Peasants, and Land in British West Africa 1905–37,” Journal of Peasant Studies 19, no. 1 (1991): 26–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bostock, “British Overseas Banks and Development Finance,” 160.

112 Austin, Labour, Land and Capital in Ghana, 276, 339–48.

113 Mars, “Monetary and Banking System,” 208.

114 IBRD, Economic Development, 157.

115 Killick, “Monetary and Financial System,” 310. It would be interesting to know how the West African Currency Board and the Bank of England would have reacted had the commercial banks expanded their lending in the deflationary 1930s, but the question does not seem to have arisen.

116 Montieth, “Competition.”

117 Ibid., 70–71. The remaining statements about the West Indies in this paragraph are based on the same article.