Financing white rule: How Luxembourg became a banker for the Belgian Congo and Apartheid South Africa

In this article, I offer a historical analysis of how bankers in Luxembourg came to be important service providers to borrowers in the Belgian Congo and Apartheid South Africa. I demonstrate how a series of unique political and cultural factors linking Luxembourg and these two (neo)colonial regimes...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Samuel Weeks
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Cambridge University Press 2024-12-01
Series:Finance and Society
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2059599924000128/type/journal_article
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Summary:In this article, I offer a historical analysis of how bankers in Luxembourg came to be important service providers to borrowers in the Belgian Congo and Apartheid South Africa. I demonstrate how a series of unique political and cultural factors linking Luxembourg and these two (neo)colonial regimes account for the financial activities that developed between the three jurisdictions. As such, I show that officials in the Belgian Congo and Apartheid South Africa were able to count on their Luxembourg-based bankers for a variety of finance-related services, including the provision of Eurocurrency loans and the formation of offshore companies. In doing so, the article contributes to a body of literature in the social sciences of finance that has grown significantly in recent years: on the imperial and neocolonial basis of the contemporary global financial system.
ISSN:2059-5999