Transition from Indian to British Indian Systems of Money and Banking 1800–1850

In: Modern Asian studies, Volume 19, Issue 3, p. 501-519

Abstract

In 1800, British India was emphatically a multi-region economy, with political and physical boundaries separating the different parts. The British were on the eve of bringing the whole of India (except Sind and the kingdom of Ranjit Singh in the North-West) under their political control. But political control did not at once bring a real unification of currency or banking that serviced long-distance or external trade, let alone the network of cash or credit transactions that kept the locally centred economic activities going.