today most people have a bank account. How about in late 17th and 18th century England, presumably the most economically advanced European nation at the time? Could a sailor coming to port put some of his earnings into a savings account so that he wouldn’t carry cash around and risk blowing it on booze? Likewise would contemporary workers/artisans save their nest eggs in some sort of banking institution or how did they go about it?
Banks? No. That’s why they invented mattresses.
Many (possibly most) poor people in England today don’t have bank accounts. If they need to cash a cheque or receive government benefits, they do so at the Post Office. And not so long ago (decades) manual laborers and other blue-collar and relatively lowly-paid workers would be paid entirely in cash.
I suspect prior to global capitalism and fiat currency, if someone, poor or otherwise, wanted to store wealth, caching currency or buying valuables (jewellery, etc.) was the preferred means.
Not only that, but they wouldn’t have wanted one. Banking was for rich people. The 19th c. Truck Acts gave workers the right to insist on payment in cash, rather then company scrip redeemable at the company store, and insist they did.
When compensation for paid for the compulsory purchase of land and homes taken in the 1940s for what is now the Thetford Battle Area in Norfolk it came as cheques, which caused great suspicion, most people never having seen one before, and which was not regarded as ‘real money’.
An interesting fact I learned about British banking recently. I was reading about the Hawley Crippen case and one of the things the author mentioned was Hawley and Cora Crippen’s bank account. Apparently the standard practice of the time (circa 1910) was that once you had deposited the money with the bank, you were only allowed to withdraw the interest at will. You had to give the bank a year’s notice in writing if you wanted to withdraw the original principal.
The OP also asked about the rest of Europe. In Germany there also were no banking facilities for workers and small artisans - the first Sparkasse was founded in 1778 in Hamburg; generally savings banks started to be founded after 1815 in larger towns and from the 1840s in rural areas, with municipial and state involvement to correct the market failure of commercial banks to provide services to working people and small farmers. (because of that background Sparkassen are still owned by municipalities or districts, and serve the population of that town or district)
So in the 17th and 18th centuries German working class people and small farmers who managed to save some money would have to keep it as cash, or in exceptional cases to invest in property or as part interest in a business.
The Post Office Savings Bank was started by the Government in 1861 as a basic savings vehicle. National Savings Certificates, started in 1916, were at one time a popular investment.
It was not until the 1960s that Harold Wilson’s government started the National Giro Bank, a basic banking service operated through the Post Office aimed at working people, most of whom still did not have bank accounts. Margaret Thatcher’s government privatised it and the name eventually disappeared after a series of mergers.
You would probably need to look at Friendly Societies, or Mutual Societies.
In essence a group would organise themselves into some sort of ‘corporate’ body to further some issue of advantage, some would have been effectively shares clubs, others would have been building societies - both for personal accomodation and investement accomodation, but the most common were effectively a form of personal insurance, from sickness, incapacity or very often, burial clubs.
Some would be short term, especially the buildings clubs where the scheme would be wound up and assets distributed according to the group constitution when all members had their objectives met - such as all members now having had a house built , others were more about social change and were philanthropic by nature.
Most nowadays would be seen as a form of benevolent fund, a form of insurance as true savings rely on very secure investments, and guarunteed returns and regualtions ensuring a mechanism to ensure the security of savers deposits did not make law until 1814 - in the UK.
Some are very old indeed, but the overwhwleming majority date from the early 19thC.
People would join these societies for all sorts of reasons, often they would be tied to certain religious leanings - such as Unitarian and especially the philosophy of self help such as is found with Quakers, others might be tied to trades guilds or even just the one employer.
You also must realise that these ‘Friendlies’ were only at one end of an organising aspect of workers, and many questions and concerns were raised about them as it was not always clear if they were related to trade unionism, Chartism and ultimately policisation of workers - when the word ‘Society’ is used in this context it must be understood that these were far more than financial institutions, they were also support networks, social clubs, so although you might think of obvious death benefit clubs, there really was not much distance at all between these and organisations such as Masons and others such as the Rosicrucians.
Membership considerations varied considerably, for instance, there was an age limit on many sickness and death benefit schemes - often they were closed to entrants over 40 years old, or even worse, when you reached 40 you could not continue membership - which in 1840 was an unlikely age to reach for many workers in Britains industrial cities - death was seen as very highly probable and so the individual was too great a risk.
You might start here,
http://www.1902encyclopedia.com/F/FRI/friendly-societies.html
This is only barebones stuff, if you are at work on a project, you may need to show how this enabled the expansion for Victorian Cities, provided security in terms of relief for workers - I’m afraid you’ll have to go to the books - but make a consideration of this, in much more recent times - ask folk about their wages being paid ‘in hand’ - this practice was very common in the UK right up to the mid 1970’s, simply because banks were closed at the weekend and workers could not get to their money - formal banks simply did not cater for the great mass of the population - many banks closed their doors at 3pm which was absolutely no use for someone working a 5 and a half day week.
The advent of cash machines has changed all that, to the extent that in less than 35 years, the UK worker has gone from a cash in hand economy to a banking economy.
It’s pretty much impossible to exist here now without some sort of bank account - many corporations/organisations refuse to do business with you on a cash-over-the-counter basis now and even the cheque is fast falling into obsolescence.
Until the 1980s it was pretty much the other way round. I was paid in cash every week and until the repeal of the Truck Acts they had to do it if you insisted. Now they can refuse to employ you without a bank a/c to pay your money into.
IIRC until about 1970 or so, the Canadian Post Office had deposit savings accounts like a bank.
The sequel to “The Immigrants”, the misadventures of swedish boys out west in the late 1800’s, featured them ending up with a large quantity of bank bills that were worthless because the bank issuing them had gone under. FDIC and other protections are relatively recent. Banks were less trustworthy back then; even recently, recall the scandal with Bert Lance(?) who was in Jimmy Carter’s cabinet - some small-town banker who seemed to treat the bank he owned as his own personal piggy-bank, making no-interest and forgivable loans to friends and family.
As usual in any small towns, everyone knew everyone else’s business. A feature of many crimes going back centuries and well into the present day was a person or gang who assulted or killed a lone old man or woman who was rumoured to be a miser and have a lot of money hidden in their house.
I know nothing about England, but personal checking accounts were not available for ordinary working stiffs until after WWII. There was a bill paying agency a block or so from where I lived and my father would go there once a week or so and pay bills. They charged, IIRC, 10c for each bill. A checking account generally required a minimum balance of $1000, a huge amount for ordinary folk (and paid no interest). After the war came “special” checking accounts that charged 10c a check, but had no minimum balance. My father had one, but still went to the agency to save 3c postage.
Savings accounts, on the other hand, were certainly available. I had a school account (which would accept a deposit of 1c) already by about 1945, but I am sure my father had one earlier. Trivium: The whole idea of school accounts was invented by Rex Stout, author of the Nero Black series, in the 30s.
Nero Wolfe
I’m afraid the government now insists on payment into a bank account.
Oh, when did they introduce that rule? I’m sure it wasn’t that as recently as 2006, as that’s when I had an unemployment benefit and no bank account.
Not true, and one of the few GQ type things I feel confident in answering, as I work for Jobcentre Plus. Many benefits can still be paid by giro, including all of ours. The government would strongly prefer people to have bank accounts, because of the amount of man-hours spent replacing lost giros and the fraud potential that exists with said giros, but they’re still available and I issue them every day.
I spent a while trying to figure out why people would use sandwiches for currency. 
Heh. Explanation in Mk VII’s post 7 