 European countries that adopted the Scottish savings bank model early on were those in which traditional Protestant values of self-help and the ideas of Jeremy Bentham and Thomas Malthus were particularly influential.Such was not the case in Portugal and Spain where savings banks started rather late (1836 and 1839, respectively) and followed the French model (established in 1818).Regulation introduced in 1835 was the first to authorise the establishment of savings banks in Spain.