From 1875 onwards, the underground funicular, still in operation today, linked Galata with Pera, a modern suburb which was situated on higher ground and had emerged in the course of the 19th century. This district housed not only the embassies of the powers represented at the Sublime Porte, but also European businesses of all kinds, hotels, churches, schools and hospitals.
The German banks were not the first European banks to open branches in Istanbul.
In 1875, France's Crédit Lyonnais[1] had established a branch on the Bosphorus and Wiener Bank-Verein, with which Deutsche Bank cooperated in many transactions in the country[2], had had a branch office there since 1906 and smaller branches in the Galata, Stamboul and Scutari[3] districts and later in Smyrna (Izmir.)[4]
Mavi Boncuk | See also: MB Article
Turkey Perfins, WBV (Wiener bank Verein, Austria) on 20pa 1905
Licensed Viennese bank, founded in 1869, its full name being "k. k. privilegierter Wiener Bankverein" (Imperial and Royal Privileged...)
Creditanstalt-Bankverein
Austria's largest commercial bank. It developed from the bank Osterreichische Creditanstalt fur Handel und Gewerbe, which was established in 1855.
In 1931 it was on the brink of bankruptcy. Its obligations, totaling 571.4 billion Austrian schillings, were taken over by the Austrian government; the Austrian National Bank and the British banking house of the Rothschilds also took part in revitalizing the bank. In 1934 the Creditanstalt-Bankverein absorbed the large Austrian bank Wiener Bankverein. In 1938, after Germany's annexation of Austria, more than three-fourths of the bank's stock came into the hands of the Deutsche Bank. In 1939 the bank was given the name of Creditanstalt-Bankverein.In 1820 Salomon Mayer von Rothschild (1774-1855) had established a first bank in Vienna, then the capital of the Austrian Empire. In the course of the beginningindustrialisation, the Rothschild bank financed large development projects, like the building of the Emperor Ferdinand Northern Railway to the Moravian mining regions. Rothschild also acted as generous lender of Austrian state chancellor Prince Klemens von Metternich and granted copious credits to the Bohemian andHungarian aristocracy.
The Creditanstalt itself was founded in 1855 by Salomon Mayer's son Anselm von Rothschild as K. k. priv. Österreichische Credit-Anstalt für Handel und Gewerbe (approximately translated as: Imperial royal privileged Austrian Credit-Institute for Commerce and Industry). Being very successful, it soon became the largest bank of Austria-Hungary.
Anselm's son Albert Salomon von Rothschild assumed the direction of the Credit-Anstalt in 1872, succeeded by Louis Nathaniel von Rothschild in 1911. In 1912 the new headquarters in Vienna's Innere Stadt central district opened in a lavishly decorated Neoclassical building, which is still preserved up to today.
The business situation dramatically changed with the lost World War I and the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. In the late 1920s, a principal debtor, the Steyr-Werke AG faced financial difficulties, with bad loans leading to a drain on finances. In October 1929 the Austrian Schober government compelled the allegedly well-financed Credit-Anstalt to assume liabilities, which together with the simultaneous Wall Street Crash entailed the imbalance of the then largest Austrian credit institution.
Creditanstalt had to declare bankruptcy on May 11, 1931. This event resulted in a global financial crisis and ultimately the bank failures of the Great Depression.[2]:2–3 [3][4] Too big to fail, Chancellor Otto Ender had the CA ultimately rescued, distributing the enormous share of costs between the Republic, the National Bank of Austria and the Rothschild family. Plans of a nationalisation schemed by the Social Democrats were rejected. However, the institute was de facto state-owned after Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuß in 1934 oredered the merger of the institute with the Wiener Bankverein, thus changing its name to Creditanstalt-Bankverein.
[1] Founded in 1863 in Lyon by Henri Germain, Crédit Lyonnais was the biggest bank in the world by 1900. It was nationalised in 1945, as was most of the banking sector in France after the war.
[2]The Ghevgeli-Saloniki railway was part of the Compagnie d'Exploitation des Chemins de Fer Orientaux, founded by Baron Hirsch, and later under Austrian and German control. The nucleus of this control was the Wiener Bank-Verein, which enjoyed the protection of, and was subject to, the Austrian Government.
[3]When Albania became independent in 1913, some banks from Austria-Hungary and Italy also showed interest. Groups of Austrian and Italian banks, led by Wiener Bankverein and Banca Commerciale Italiana respectively, tried to establish an Albanian National Bank, but with no success. During the war, only Wiener Bankverein operated in the territory of Albania. [4] Document from Smyrna branch. Pictured