The word “bankrupt” is from the Italian ‘banca rotta’, literally “broken bench.”

In the years of early banking, people who dealt with money did their business in the public square at a bench. Exchanging, storing, and lending money in the open. If the man at the bench, or the banker, ran out of money or was unfair, his bench would be broken.

Unfortunately no such punishments or public humiliations exist today.