Chapter 6 on ‘democratisation’ continues to examine how public banks can function in the public interest, if not without contradictions. Looking at the cases of Germany’s KfW and Costa Rica’s Banco Popular, the chapter argues that their ways of democratisation support their institutional credibility, and hence persistence. In distinct but meaningful ways, the KfW and Banco Popular enable their societies to have a meaningful say over how these public banks function. In contrast to decarbonisation and definancialisation, however, democratisation has a more disproportionately self-evident public interest effect. Yet it is not a completed act wherein these public banks are democratised once and for all. Democratisation, too, is pulled between contending public and private interests in class-divided society within global financialised capitalism.

Chapter 4 on ‘decarbonisation’ argues that the ways that the China Development Bank and the Nordic Investment Bank function to tackle the crisis of climate finance bolsters their credibility and persistence within class-divided society. These public banks are scaling up financial capacity, directing it towards decarbonisation and environmental sustainability, and developing accountable floors for green funding decisions in ways that can inform needed debate on what pro-public green & just public banks should be like. However, neither are without contradictions. Despite committing substantial resources to combatting climate change, the China Development Bank and the Nordic Investment Bank also fuel it by disproportionately funding otherwise carbonising economic activities, exposing the green and growth contradictions of global financialised capitalism.

Chapter 5 argues that the definancialisation functions of the Indian National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) and the American Bank of North Dakota (BND) help these institutions persist as credible public banks in their class-divided societies. As with decarbonisation so too with definancialisation. Contradictions arise and struggles endure over who benefits from what public banks do. Public banks can shield workers, the poor and marginalised, micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), the public sector, and spatial regions (rural/urban) from the discipline of financialised market imperatives. Public banks can similarly shield finance capital, the wealthy and privileged, large financial and non-financial corporations, and even the financial world market from these same financial imperatives, entrenching their unequal power over social reproduction.

Chapter 1 argues that total global public banking capacity is exponentially greater than what tends to be reported by international institutions. Two premises support the argument. First, the financing for development literature provides an inconsistent and inaccurate empirical account of public banks around the world. The forcefulness of this premise depends on the second premise, namely that national and subnational public banks persist in significant institutional numbers and size. The chapter shows there are more than 900 public banks with nearly $49 trillion in combined assets. Understanding the actual capacity of (sub)national public banks is a precondition for having an informed debate on the future of public banks and for whom they might catalyse a global green & just transition. The chapter opens this discussion by first locating public banks within the wider credit system and in relation to other types of public financial institutions.

Chapter 7 develops the idea that there are sufficient existing pro-public public banking functions (and resources) to synthesise what a democratised green & just public bank can and should look like. It does so to illustrate how public banks can be made to function in pro-public green & just ways otherwise impossible under the short-term, high-return regime of corporatised and private financiers. The proposal revolves around pursuing a Triple Bottom Line, or mandate, aimed at (1) a green & just transition, (2) financial sustainability, and (3) democratic decision-making.

The Introduction situates contemporary public banks as socially contested and institutionally dynamic financial institutions. It presents the book's core argument that public banks are resurgent not by virtue of being publicly owned but because of the institutional functions they have acquired over time and can perform within class-divided society. These functions are not neutral within global financialised capitalism but are pulled between private and public interests. This leaves open the possibility for pro-public, green & just orientations. The chapter provides the book's methodology, rationale, and overview of the book’s structure.

Chapter 2 explores how the economics literature is anything but conclusive on public banking. Reliant on fixed yet polarised tenets of public versus private ownership, its scholars offer contrasting evidence on and contending theories of public banks in economic development. This division within economics occurs along ideological lines. For heterodox ‘development’ views, there is good theory and evidence for public banks. For orthodox ‘political’ ones, the opposite. The aim of this chapter is not to resolve these antinomies but to illustrate them in order to move past them. The economics literature is too preoccupied with fixed notions of public and private ownership and this impedes understanding of how and why public banks evolve. By contrast, I argue for a dynamic political economy view of public banks. In this view, what public banks are depends instead on how social forces in class-divided societies make and remake them over time. That is, contested institutional functions give meaning to the public ownership form.

Chapter 8, the Epilogue, sketches out how public banks have responded to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in its earliest stages. The chapter makes two interrelated points, points which have run through the book so far. First, it exposes the societal dangers of subordinating control of the financial system and its capacity to the private sector and to financialised profit imperatives. Second, it highlights the benefits of protecting public banking capacity in order to make time available when needed. It focuses on the responses of the six public banks discussed in the book: the China Development Bank, the Nordic Investment Bank, the Indian National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), the American Bank of North Dakota, the German KfW, and the Costa Rican Banco Popular y de Desarrollo Comunal.

Chapter 3 looks at how contemporary studies of public banks have tended to bypass the historical dynamism of public banks, preferring to see the diverse legacies of public banks through narrow concepts like ‘market failure’ or ‘additionality’. This can impoverish rather than enrich how we think of contemporary public banks and constrain how we imagine their future. This chapter argues that the histories of public banks are more diverse than typically recognised within mainstream economics. Nevertheless, the transition to neoliberalism has tended to narrow the reproductive options for public banks towards more corporatised and marketised logics.