banking" above. Free Banking in the United States before the Civil War refers to various state banking systems based on what were called at the time "free banking" laws. These laws made it necessary for new entrants to secure charters, each of which was subject to a vote by the state legislature with obvious opportunities for corruption. These general banking laws also restricted banks' activities in important ways. Most importantly, US free banks could have only one office and had to provide security for their notes by gold reserves but also by purchasing and surrendering to state banking authorities certain securities the state law deemed acceptable for the purpose. The securities generally included bonds of state governments. The depreciation of these bonds was the chief cause of free bank failures in various episodes when many banks in a state failed. The lack of branch banking, in turn, caused state-issued banknotes to be discounted at varying rates once they had traveled any considerable distance from their sources, which was an inconvenience. Depreciation of assets more generally is also used to explain failures. Several authors attribute the high-rate of bank failures during the Free Banking era in the US ultimately to restrictions on banks' portfolios of assets. For reviews of the literature, see and Then, from 1863 to 1913, known as the National Banks Era, state-chartered banks were operating under a free banking system. Some scholars have found that the system was mostly stable compared to National Banks of that era. Sweden Sweden had two periods of free banking, 1830–1860 and 1860–1902. Following a bank crisis in 1857, there was a rise in popular support for private banks and private money issuers (especially Stockholms Enskilda Bank, founded in 1856). A new bank law was adopted by parliament in 1864, deregulating the interest rate. The following decades marked the height of the Swedish free banking era. After 1874, no new private banks were founded. In 1901, issuing of private money was prohibited. Research on the Swedish free banking era suggest stability, and a single bank failure related to fraud in 70 years. China Jiaozi was a form of banknote which appeared around 10th century in the Sichuan capital of Chengdu, China. Between 960 and 1004, the bank notes were totally run by private merchants. Until government decided to regulate the business on alleged increasing fraud cases and disputes, and it granted 16 licenses