Bank of Salonica
Created in 1886 under the initial leadership of the Salonica Jewish Allatini family with Austrian, Hungarian and French banking partners, it contributed to the development of the Eastern Mediterranean and Southern Balkans during the late Ottoman Empire.
[5]: 572 The Banque de Salonique soon opened branches in Istanbul, Monastir (now Bitola) in 1893, Smyrna (now İzmir) in 1898,[6] Kavala in 1904, Üsküb (now Skopje) in 1907, as well as offices in Dedeagach (now Alexandroupoli), Xanthi and Drama in 1909 and Soufli, Kumanovo and Gyumyurdjina (now Komotini) in 1910.
[5]: 581 In the early 1910s, Société Générale also had to manage an unstable competitive balance between the Banque de Salonique and its larger competitor (and also minority shareholder) the Imperial Ottoman Bank.
[5]: 582-583 In the context of rising tension between France and Austria-Hungary, the Austrian Länderbank in 1913 sold its interest in Banque de Salonique to the Russo-Asiatic Bank, which also had strong links with the Société Générale.
[5]: 584 In 1918, in view of the new geopolitical situation cemented by World War I and the Russian Revolution, the bank closed its operations in Monastir, Üsküb, Xanthi, Dedeagach, Gyumyurdjina, Tripoli, Kirk-Kilisse, and Drama.
[2]: 245 Following the Treaty of Lausanne and the normalization of Greek-Turkish relations in 1923, the Banque de Salonique was able to resume its business development in Turkey, even though it closed its Edirne office in 1924.
)[2]: 265 In the 1960s, however, the CFAT lost its core Algerian and Tunisian operations (it renamed itself Société Centrale de Banque in 1963) and its Levantine footprint became increasingly difficult to maintain.
It closed the Mersin branch in 1967, and in 1969 sold its controlling stake in Banque de Salonique to Yapı Kredi, which renamed it International Bank for Industry and Commerce (Turkish: Uluslararası Endüstri ve Ticaret Bankası).
[11] The headquarters building of the Banque de Salonique in downtown Thessaloniki was designed in 1905 by Vitaliano Poselli,[12] and completed in 1909,[13] on ground that was previously the large garden of the Allatini family mansion.
After World War II and the Banque de Salonique's demise, it hosted the Bank of Chios from 1950 to 1954,[13] when the Voreopoulou family purchased it and renamed it "Malakopi Arcade" (Greek: Στοά Μαλακοπή) in memory of their ancestral town, now Derinkuyu in central Turkey.
[20][21] The bank's branch building, on the city's central Fevzipaşa Boulevard, was left undamaged by the burning of Smyrna in 1922[22] but was nevertheless rebuilt in ornate Art Deco style later in the 1920s.
