English: Dōjima Rice Exchange (Dōjima kome kaisho) ukiyo-e by Yoshimitsu Sasaki (1850-1891). This is where the world's first futures exchange took place. The offices of Dojima Rice Exchange built over the Dojima river in Osaka: upper right depicts a scene where a flag is used to disseminate the price of rice. It was the center of Japan's system of rice brokers, which developed independently and privately in the Edo period and would be seen as the forerunners to a modern banking system. It was first established in 1697, officially sanctioned, sponsored and organized by the shogunate in 1773, reorganized in 1868, and dissolved entirely in 1939, being absorbed into the Government Rice Agency.