This compelling contribution to contemporary debates about the banking industry offers a unique perspective on its geographical and conceptual ‘placement’. It traces the evolving links between the two, revealing how our notions of banking ‘productiveness’ have evolved alongside the shifting loci of banking activity.An original contribution to the urgent debates taking place on banking sparked by the current economic crisisOffers a unique perspective on the geographical and social concept of ‘placement’ of the banking industryCombines theoretical approaches from political economy with contemporary literature on the performativity of economicsDetails the globalization of Western banking, and analyzes how representations of the banking sector’s productiveness have shifted throughout the evolution of Western economic theoryAnalyzes the social conceptualization of the nature – and value – of the banking industryIlluminates not only how economic ideas ‘perform’ and shape the economic world, but how those ideas are themselves always products of particular economic realities