[1]: 368 Progress was slow due to French reluctance to dilute their competitive position and then overtaken by news in late 1908 of the proposed National Bank of Turkey (NBT) which, according to the Foreign Office was "not initiated or suggested by us, and is carried out independently of us".
"[1]: 370–372 The Young Turks had asked Boghos Nubar Pasha and Calouste Gulbenkian to form NBT, as evidenced by a letter of 7 December 1908 that included an NBT prospectus, from Frederick Lane (shipping broker, Rothschilds’ agent and Gulbenkian associate[4]: 24 ) to Hugo Loudon of Royal Dutch Shell.
[3]: 1 In the early 1900s Deutsche Bank, through the Anatolian Railway Company had mineral and oil exploration rights in a 20 km strip either side of the proposed route from Konia to the Persian Gulf.
On 19 March 1914, the British and German governments signed an agreement whereby the interest of NBT in TPC was transferred to APOC.
[5]: 269 In 1918-1919 the NBT was acquired by the British Trade Corporation (BTC), an investment bank that had been created in 1917 to support the war effort.