ABSTRACT
The argument that the Imperial Ottoman Bank was part and parcel of the modernization and westernization programme upon which the Ottoman state embarked in the ninetenth century requires little, if any, justification. As a financial broker of the Empire, the Imperial Ottoman Bank was without any doubt fulfilling the role of an instrument of modernization at the hands of the westernizing elites of the time. In that sense, the institution was part and parcel of the ongoing westernization programme; however, the question remains whether the Ottoman Bank was an instrument or really an actor in the process. For the Ottoman Bank, a normalization of the Ottoman debt would bring about the normalization of its own activities as a commercial venture. A single example will best illustrate the awkward situation that had by then developed between the government and the Ottoman Bank.
