The Bank of Australia was a failed financial institution of early colonial New South Wales formed in 1826 by a producers' and merchants' group as a rival to the Bank of New South Wales. It was dubbed the "pure merino" bank because its share register included the plutocracy of the colony but excluded the ex-convicts who had been associated with the Bank of New South Wales. When investors responded to the depression of the late 1830s by the abrupt withdrawal of capital leading to a chain of insolvencies, a number of colonial banks found that their unrestricted lending had sent prices land soaring as speculators borrowed to invest especially in urban areas. When the banks called in these loans further insolvencies occurred and a number of banks, including the Bank of Australia, failed in 1843