National Bank of Greece - History

History

NBG was founded in 1841 in Athens, making it the oldest bank in the country. It was not government-owned from its inception but had the right of note issue, which it lost in 1928 when the newly-established Bank of Greece took over as the country's central bank. In 1899 NBG acquired the Privileged Bank of Epirus and Thessaly (Pronomiouchos Trapeza Epirothessalias). Andreas Syngros had founded the bank in Volos in 1882. Unfortunately, the bank was unable to recover from his death and from the Greco-Turkish War (1897).

The arrival of the 20th Century saw NBG begin its international expansion. In 1904 NBG established Banque d’Orient, together with Nationalbank für Deutschland, which almost immediately withdrew from the venture. The Greeks kept the branches in Thessaloniki, Smyrna and Alexandria. Three years later, NBG chose Cyprus as the location for its first branch outside Greece. NBG became government-owned during the First World War when NBG refused to finance new military equipment for the Greek government. The government then passed a law that permitted the government to appoint its own people to the Bank's board.

In 1919 NBG acquired the Bank of Crete (Trapeza Kritis). However, in 1923 the Treaty of Lausanne provided for a compulsory exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey, leading to the departure of the Greeks from Smyrna. As a result Banque d’Orient closed its branch there.

The 1930s saw further international expansion. In 1930 NBG and Bank of Athens combined their activities in Egypt into a joint subsidiary, Banque Nationale de Grèce et d’Athènes. Two years later, NBG acquired Banque d'Orient (Trapeza Anatolis). Then in 1939, on the eve of the Second World War, the NBG established a subsidiary in New York, the Hellenic Bank Trust Company. In World War II, the NBG in Greece was managed by Deutsche Bank for the German Occupiers.