Historic Trading Companies and Banks

Chartered trading companies and early banking houses of the early modern era whose historical significance is commercial and financial rather than as a continuing modern regulatory or monetary institution, including the Dutch and English East India Companies, Hudson's Bay Company and the Medici Bank. Belongs here: pre-modern or early-modern commercial and banking institutions whose primary historical role in this atlas is trade, finance or colonial commerce rather than current monetary or regulatory function. Does not belong here: still-operating central banks or exchanges with continuous modern institutional identity, whatever their founding date, grouped under Central Banks and Monetary Authorities or Stock Exchanges and Market Infrastructure.