With an exceptional longevity of almost 150 years, the Ottoman Bank is one of the most fascinating banking institutions of the modern era. Foreign yet at the same time Ottoman, private yet holding the privileges and duties of a state bank, its complex history is intimately linked to that of the Ottoman Empire, but also to that of the Turkish Republic after the collapse of the empire. Taking the bank´s monetary role and functions as its guideline, but without discarding its complex and often ambiguous relation to the political, social and economic context of the time, this book traces the history of the institution from its foundation in 1856 to the transformations it underwent during the first decade of the Republic.