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A network of rice brokers centered at the [[Dojima Rice Exchange|Dôjima Rice Exchange]] in [[Osaka]] represents an [[Edo period]] precursor to the modern banking system, and the first instance of a futures market (延べ米, ''nobemai'') in Japan. Emerging in the [[Genroku period]] (1688-1704) and developing and expanding over the course of the 18th century, rice brokers operated a network of storehouses where customers - mainly samurai, whose stipends were paid in ''[[koku]]'' of rice and not directly in gold or silver - could store and access their wealth. A system of credit was also introduced allowing customers to pay for goods and services not in gold or silver [[currency]], but with bills of exchange - these were pieces of paper that functioned, perhaps, not entirely unlike a personal check, which the merchant could then take to a rice broker and exchange for the actual value in gold, silver, or rice.

A network of rice brokers centered at the [[Dojima Rice Exchange|Dôjima Rice Exchange]] in [[Osaka]] represents an [[Edo period]] precursor to the modern banking system, and the first instance of a futures market (延べ米, ''nobemai'') in Japan. Emerging in the [[Genroku period]] (1688-1704) and developing and expanding over the course of the 18th century, rice brokers operated a network of storehouses where customers - mainly samurai, whose stipends were paid in ''[[koku]]'' of rice and not directly in gold or silver - could store and access their wealth. A system of credit was also introduced allowing customers to pay for goods and services not in gold or silver [[currency]], but with scrip, pieces of paper that functioned, perhaps, not entirely unlike a personal check, which the merchant could then take to a rice broker and exchange for the actual value in gold, silver, or rice.

Rice brokerages operated in Kyoto three centuries prior, albeit in a different manner. Yet, rice brokerages evidently continued in one form or another since then, and existed prior to the [[1697]] establishment of the Dôjima Rice Exchange, since [[Ihara Saikaku]], in his [[1688]] publication ''[[Nihon eitaigura]]'' lists off the brokerage firms of Osaka's Nakanoshima district as follows: Yodoya, Tsukaguchiya, Uwajimaya, Bizenya, Kamiya, Kônoikeya, Kuwanaya, Otsukaya, Shioya, Higoya, Fukaeya, Kiya, Hizenya, and Oka.<ref>Berry, Mary Elizabeth. ''Japan in Print''. University of California Press, 2006. p216.</ref>

Rice brokerages operated in Kyoto three centuries prior, albeit in a different manner. Yet, rice brokerages evidently continued in one form or another since then, and existed prior to the [[1697]] establishment of the Dôjima Rice Exchange, since [[Ihara Saikaku]], in his [[1688]] publication ''[[Nihon eitaigura]]'' lists off the brokerage firms of Osaka's Nakanoshima district as follows: Yodoya, Tsukaguchiya, Uwajimaya, Bizenya, Kamiya, Kônoikeya, Kuwanaya, Otsukaya, Shioya, Higoya, Fukaeya, Kiya, Hizenya, and Oka.<ref>Berry, Mary Elizabeth. ''Japan in Print''. University of California Press, 2006. p216.</ref>