In this paper, we offer an alternative to class-based studies of saving behavior by using individual-level ledger records from accounts opened in 1830 in the Limehouse Savings Bank, London. Our analysis suggests that such banks served a valid financial purpose for a much wider constituency of savers than the targeted “industrious poor.” True gaming of the system by the middle classes appears to be relatively limited, and instead depositors were using accounts for a variety of means and motivations. We suggest that the contemporary consternation around class was misplaced and that we can better understand and predict depositor behaviors through analysis of transaction data.

This article deals with savings banks and the extent to which they encouraged workers to save. A study of probate inventories from three Swedish towns shows that just 20–30 per cent of workers had assets in savings banks during the second half of the nineteenth century. Saving patterns differed greatly among groups of workers. Savings banks were most important for unskilled, unmarried women, but married workers were more likely to invest in, for example, real estate (1870s) and insurance (1900s). Family considerations greatly affected saving decisions, which detracted from the appeal of savings banks. Their emphasis on individual saving was more suitable for those who needed a flexible alternative to use for different saving needs. This flexibility also made it easier for savings banks to meet growing competition and can explain why they continued to attract workers in the twentieth century. Although savings banks never dominated the workers' saving arena, they probably promoted unmarried workers' awareness of the advantages of saving. Consequently, since all married workers had previously been unmarried, savings banks most likely contributed to fostering saving habits among the working class.

Savings banks were created as a means to encourage the newly created working class to save for the uncertainties of urban industrial life. This article explores the success of the Savings Bank of Glasgow, and pays particular attention to the response of savers to the financial and commercial crises of 1847 and 1857. The crisis of 1847 was shallower but longer lasting in Glasgow, while that of 1857 was greatly exacerbated by local conditions in the short term, but of little long-term importance to savers. It suggests that, in both crises, some elements of contagion may have been present but that those who panicked in 1857 were systematically different from those who did not.

This paper explores the relationship between the nature of Spanish savings banks and the extent of their market success during the twentieth century. It deals with the key factors which have made such a good performance possible, including their ability to promote private saving, to cooperate with government economic policy, to adapt to changing circumstances, to operate in particular geographical areas, and to cooperate with one another. Finally, the paper deals in depth with this last factor. The competitive cooperation model is used to explain the outstanding role of the Spanish Confederation of Savings Banks in making the strategic alliance between the Spanish savings banks possible.

This paper analyses the evolution of Savings Banks in Spain during the last decades of the 19th century and the first third of the 20th century. The effects of the regulation and public intervention are analysed, as well as the creation of corporative and representative organisms of Savings Banks. It also reviews the consolidation of the Savings Banks in the financial-banking system. The regional focus is applied to show the strategies used by these financial institutions, in order to understand their growth. Between 1880 and 1936 the Savings Banks played an important role in the financial domestic system, adapting their services to their clients' demands. In this way the Savings Banks confronted the private big banking sector in order to attract more clients, mainly middle and working classes in urban and rural areas. Finally Savings Banks became an important instrument of the social policy of governments, especially through the investment in public debt.