The Direktion der Disconto-Gesellschaft was established on 6 June 1851 at the initiative of David Hansemann, who had resigned two months later from his position as head of the Bank of Prussia.

[1]: 6 On 9 January 1856, seeking increased financial firepower, Hansemann led the Disconto-Gesellschaft's conversion into a limited stock company in the form of Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien, exploiting a loophole in Prussian law that again allowed him to proceed without a government authorization.

[1]: 7 In 1864, the Discont-Gesellschaft was the first to break the near-monopoly of the Austrian Rothschilds and Rothschild-controlled Creditanstalt on the financing of the Habsburg monarchy, paving the way for competition that was soon joined by the Darmstädter Bank (which had tentatively entered the parket in 1860), the Allgemeine Bodencreditanstalt (est.

[3]: 411 In 1889, the Disconto-Gesellschaft participated in the creation of the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank in Shanghai,[3]: 441  in 1897, of the Banca Generală Română [ro] in Bucharest, and in 1898, of the Banque Internationale de Bruxelles.

As a national factor, the Disconto-Gesellschaft lent its greatest support to industry through the promotion and financing of enterprises for the development of Germany's natural resources: the mining of coal and metals, smelting, iron and steel, potash, shipbuilding, electrical development, railways, fire and life insurance, etc.

Beginning in 1881, Disconto-Gesellschaft established or participated in the establishment of 15 important banking institutions, having 87 branches, scattered throughout Europe, Asia, South Pacific, South America and Africa; and through communities of interest, it had banking connections in Hamburg, Leipzig, Bremen, Mannheim and Geestmunde, these latter having 51 branches and numerous other agencies throughout the German Empire.