Origin of the word

The name bank derives from the Italian word banco "desk/bench", used during the Renaissance by Florentine bankers, who used to make their transactions above a desk covered by a green tablecloth.[3] However, there are traces of banking activity even in ancient times.
In fact, the word traces its origins back to the Ancient Roman Empire, where moneylenders would set up their stalls in the middle of enclosed courtyards called macella on a long bench called a bancu, from which the words banco and bank are derived. As a moneychanger, the merchant at the bancu did not so much invest money as merely convert the foreign currency into the only legal tender in Rome—that of the Imperial Mint.[4]