In one sense, each growing economy in Europe adapted its own banking to its particular needs. Britain, the leading 19th century nation in Europe, developed its private banking structure for the needs of colonial trade: long-term capital investment opportunities abroad. Germany, on the other hand, developed its banking structure with the purpose of 'catching up'.

Racism was the ideology that accompanied Colonial invasions over these long 500 years. Racism was also the backbone of ideas that accompanied industrialisation. The ideology provided the perfect explanation for the people who dominated globally; at the same time as they created new inventions technologically. The people involved assumed that they were a superior ‘breed’ of people. The French, Dutch, British and latterly the Americans absorbed racist ideas as the ‘natural’ order. The ideas of race and the racism that sprang from these ideas permeated Nations, so whole peoples assumed their innate superiority.