The Imperial Ottoman Bank in the later nineteenth century: a multinational ‘national' bank?

The Imperial Ottoman Bank/Banque Itnp&riale Otto mane (BIO) opened for business in Constantinople in June 1863 as the state bank of the Ottoman Empire. ¹ The idea of a state or 'national' bank had been in circulation on the shores of the Bosphorus for some time, but it was finally converted into reality by the great reforming statesman Fuad Pasha as one of a series of measures intended to try to rescue his country from the morass of government insolvency and monetary disorder into which it had fallen by the end of 1861. However, because he wanted to be able to draw upon the resources of both the London and the Paris money markets, and so as to avoid the political commitment that choosing between the rival groups of foreign financiers would involve, Fuad made it clear that the English and French bankers competing for the concession must combine forces. ² The two principal contenders, the Ottoman Bank, a non-privileged English joint-stock bank which had been conducting ordinary commercial banking in Constantinople and a few other places since 1856, and a French group headed by the Credit Mobilier, thus had little choice but to enter into negotiations with each other. By mid-November 1862 they had reached agreement and by the end of January successfully struck a deal with the Porte. ³ But the joint Anglo-French concern which emerged was not what either the English or the French founders had wanted, and it had not been sought by the bankers involved for its own sake. From their point of view it was a second best (because it involved sharing spoils they had hoped to enjoy on their own), which had been forced on them by the Ottoman ministers.