History - Jewish Colonial Trust
The first Zionist bank, it
was founded at the Second Zionist Congress and incorporated in London in
1899. The JCT was intended to be the financial instrument of the Zionist
Organization, and was to obtain capital and credit to help attain a
charter for Palestine.
It quickly became clear that the amount of capital raised by the JCT was
far from sufficient to attain this goal; the sum raised was only
£395,000 of the £8 million target.
The JCT's main activities in Palestine were carried out by the
Anglo-Palestine Bank, formed as a subsidiary in 1902. Its seed capital
was only £40,000. The bank opened its first branch in Jaffa in 1903
under the management of Zalman David Levontin, and quickly made a name
for itself as a reliable and trustworthy institution, which did not
consider business transactions and profitability its only goals. In its
early years, the bank conducted transactions in support of the Zionist
enterprise: land purchase, imports, obtaining of concessions and so on.
Branches were opened in Jerusalem, Beirut (then the region's main
commercial center), Hebron, Safed, Haifa, Tiberias and Gaza.
The Anglo-Palestine Bank established a network of credit unions in the
moshavot and gave farmers long-term loans. It also helped with the
construction of the first 60 houses in Tel Aviv. During World War I,
when the Zionist enterprise faced severe difficulties, the bank managed
to keep its funds intact, transferring them to safe locations. The
Turkish government, considering the bank an enemy institution because it
was registered in Britain, ordered its branches shut and its cash
confiscated. The liquidation of the bank's branches proceeded very
slowly and business continued surreptitiously. After the war, the
operations of the bank expanded, and other banks were founded in
Palestine. In 1932, the main office of the Anglo-Palestine Bank was
moved from Jaffa to Jerusalem.
In 1934, the JCT terminated its banking activity and became a holding
company for Anglo-Palestine Bank shares only.
During World War II, the Anglo-Palestine Bank was able to use the large
reserves it had built up to finance the developing industries that
supplied provisions to the British army. When the State of Israel was
established, the bank was given the concession to issue new banknotes
and became the government's banker and financial agent. In 1950, the
bank's registration was transferred from Britain to Israel, and it was
renamed Bank Leumi Le-Israel (National Bank of Israel). When the Bank of
Israel was founded as Israel's central bank (1954), Bank Leumi became a
commercial bank.
In 1955, the Jewish Colonial Trust became an Israeli company, and in the
late 1980s it was sold to private investors.
From: http://www.mfa.gov.il/
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