ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the emergence and operations of banks established with foreign capital as well as the role which these banks played in Bulgaria's banking system and economic development from the end of the nineteenth century to the Second World War. In 1910-1912 western capital showed a noticeable interest in mortgage credit in Bulgaria which, in turn, led to the establishment of specialized bank institutes. There was a massive influx of western capital in Bulgarian banking in the mid-1910s. The interest that western banks showed in Bulgarian banking in the 1880s and 1890s was quite limited. The Ottoman Bank/Banque Impriale Ottomane seems to have been the only foreign bank that played a relatively important role in the Bulgarian economy. The activity of western capital in Bulgarian banking at the end of the nineteenth century and in the first four decades of the twentieth century can best be understood against the backdrop of Bulgarian economic development in this period.
