It was not only private persons who made loans. The great temples frequently lent money, putting to use the rich treasures accumulated from donations and dedications by cities and by individuals.

The unusually detailed epigraphic material provides us with vital details about how the major temples on Athenian territory acted as banks. It seems they more often lent to cities and demes than to isolated instances of citizens. One fairly concentrated collection of information has to do with the island of Delos. There - between 377/6 and 374/3 B.C. - the temple of Apollo lent money to thirteen cities in the Cyclades. The sum lent varied from 400 to 6,000 drachmae. The purpose of the loans was purchase of grain (a total sum of 9,950 drachmae); protection from pirates (5,000 drachmae); and fashioning crowns of honour.

It is also well known that at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War the Lacedaemonians were thinking of borrowing money from Delphi and Olympia. But, as we know from Thucydides (Histories 1.121.3 & 1.143.1), they eventually did not do so.
In 431 B.C., Perikles finally declared all the offerings to Athenian temples, deposits of money included, to be 'Athenian funds'. He emphasized, though, that these should be used only as a last resort, and on the understanding that they were to be replaced (Histories 2.13.4-5). Such a situation occurred in 407/6 B.C. The Athenians, faced with a silver shortage, minted an emergency coinage made of the gold from sacred offerings to the Acropolis temples.