Banque Française pour le Commerce et l'Industrie

[2] In the late 1870s, Egypt’s growing financial distress led the bank to seek additional capital from other sources including the Paris-based Crédit Industriel et Commercial, Ukraine-born banker Jacques de Gunzbourg [fr], and the Hentsch & Lütscher, Goldschmidt, and Königswarter family banks.

The BFE’s head office was in a building at 3-5, rue Saint-Georges in Paris, designed in 1869 by architect Hector Degeorge [fr], which was demolished in the early 20th century.

[1] On 14 May 1889, as the BFE's activity in Egypt had decreased to the point that its name no longer made sense, the Bischoffheim family fostered a restructuring in which the BFE ceased activity and brought its residual capital to the newly formed Banque internationale de Paris [fr] (BIP, “International Bank of Paris”).

The BFCI developed an investment banking business based on the prior ventures of its two predecessor entities, and also expanded into Brazil and the Ottoman Empire.

In 1921, the BFCI sponsored the creation of the Banque Française des Pays d'Orient (BFPO, "French Bank of Eastern Lands"), with other participants including the Crédit Mobilier Français and Société générale de Belgique, with the aim to support French ventures in the post-Ottoman Eastern Mediterranean region, even though in practice it only developed its activity in Turkey.

[6] In Istanbul, the BFPO took over the former branch building of the Wiener Bankverein, erected a decade earlier on a prominent location at the northern entrance of the Golden Horn.