A public bank is a bank, a financial institution, in which a state, municipality, or public actors are the owners. It is an enterprise under government control.[1] Prominent among current public banking models are the Bank of North Dakota, the German public bank system, and many nations’ postal bank systems.

Public or 'state-owned' banks proliferated globally in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as vital agents of industrialisation in capitalist and socialist countries alike; as late as 2012, state banks still owned and controlled up to 25 per cent of total global banking assets.[2]

Proponents of public banking argue that policymakers can create public-sector banks to reduce the costs of government services and infrastructure; protect and aid local banks; offer banking services to people and entities underserved by private-sector banking; and promote particular kinds of economic development reflecting polities’ shared notions of social good. The 2015 Addis Ababa Financing for Development Action Agenda noted that public banks should have an important role in achieving the new Sustainable Development Goals. Increasingly, major international financial institutions are recognising the positive and catalytic role public banks can serve in the coming low carbon climate resilient transition. Further, international NGOs and critical scholars argue that public banks can play a significant role in financing a just and equitable energy transition.[3]