A house in which banking operations are carried on; a mercantile firm engaged in banking or some branch of it.
1809. R. Langford, Introd. Trade, 129. Banking-house, a receptacle for people’s money for commercial purposes.
1816. Gentl. Mag., LXXXVI. I. 97. Became a partner in the banking-house of Down, Thornton, and Free.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., IV. 490. The days when there was not a single banking house in the city of London.
1879. T. H. S. Escott, England, I. 233. The difference existing between the two classes of business—a banking house and a bank.
