Banque Franco-Serbe

The Banque Franco-Serbe was created in 1910 by a group of French-linked financial institutions, mainly the Imperial Ottoman Bank of Constantinople (known by its French acronym BIO), the Banque de l'Union parisienne (BUP) of Paris, and the Société financière d’Orient of Brussels,[2] the latter of which had been created by the BIO in 1896 to support markets for Ottoman securities in which it had troubled exposures.

[4]: vii, 2 In the wake of the Serbian territorial gains at the Treaty of Bucharest (1913), the BFS in 1914 took over the former BIO branches in Bitola and Skopje.

During World War I, its activity in Serbia was suspended and its local gold reserves were shipped by the French Navy to Marseille via Thessaloniki.

[5] Following financial difficulties, the BIO, by then controlled by the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas (BPPB), became the BFS's majority owner through a capital restructuring in 1928.

[4]: 51  Following the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941, its activities withered and it lost its significant business in Macedonia.

Building at 14, rue Le Peletier in Paris, BFS head office from 1910 to the early 1920s
Belgrade branch of the BFS on Knez Mihailova Street , completed in 1922; [ 1 ] now a branch of Erste Bank Serbia