The Ottoman Bank: State Bank of the Empire (Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries)

In being originally a semi-colonial bank with much British and French capital, the Ottoman Bank brought western banking to a region that was still much in the Middle Ages. It acted as a central bank, financed state debt but also economic modernisation and weathered political crises, e.g., when Turkey did away with the Ottoman sultans—becoming a republic in the 1920s. Interestingly, politicians such as the well-equipped Minister Cavid Bey had a big say in the Bank’s hey days, but the Bank remained fairly independent throughout until a merger in 2001.