New research compiled for the Register of British Slave Traders shows the Bank of England and Britain's wider financial system were far more deeply entangled in the transatlantic slave trade than previously documented. Historian Dr Michael Bennett of the University of Sheffield found that dozens of the Bank's directors and founding subscribers, including its very first backers in 1694, personally invested in trafficking enslaved Africans, indicating that slave-trade wealth helped form part of the Bank's initial capital. This matters because the Bank of England, now government-owned, remains a central pillar of the UK's financial establishment, and the findings deepen understanding of how profits from slavery shaped Britain's banking system.

Bennett identified 24 Bank directors, nine of whom also served as governors, who invested in the trafficking of enslaved people, alongside at least 30 founding subscribers including King William III and Queen Mary II. Examples cited include Christopher Puller, a director until his death in 1789 who co-owned a 1786 slave voyage, and John Rudge, a director and governor who also held roles in the Royal African Company and South Sea Company. This builds on earlier research from University College London's Legacies of British Slavery project, which found 16 past governors and 26 directors held financial interests in enslaved people and plantations, and notes that £20m (around £23bn today) was paid in "compensation" to enslavers after abolition in 1833, with nothing paid to those who had been enslaved.