This paper reviews the characteristics of the international incursions by banks since the early 1990s, examines the implications of the US subprime meltdown crisis and ensuing credit crunch for the pursuit of international banking activities, and provides a prospective view on how banks will...

Société Générale de Belgique was the world's first universal bank. It pioneered another innovation: investing in non-listed equity. We use hand-collected data to show that the bank earned significant positive risk-adjusted returns from 1850 to 1934. This offset its flat return on the listed...