For more than a century, interlocking directorate studies have provided evidence of the centrality of banks to corporate networks. In explaining this phenomenon, sociologists have principally focused on immediate financial relations between banks and industry, such as credit and shareholding, but have neglected what economic theory might contribute in terms of the role played by banks in financial intermediation and money creation. From such a theoretical perspective, we propose that the centrality of banks is better understood as a form of collegial regulation of money creation, while the progressive disappearance of this phenomenon would indicate the rise of bureaucratic regulation by central banks and global financial institutions.