Bank of Athens

There have been two Greek banks with the name Bank of Athens, both headquartered in Athens, Greece. The first was founded in 1893 and operated in the Balkans and the eastern Mediterranean until the National Bank of Greece acquired it in 1953. The name disappeared a few years thereafter. The second Bank of Athens was founded in 1993 and merged into Eurobank Ergasias in 1999. In addition, numerous banks in the United States of America had Bank of Athens in their name.

In 1893 Ep. Empeirikos, Al. Lambrinoudis, A. Kallergis, M. Iordanopoulos, and N. Triantafyllidis founded the Bank of Athens with Greek, French, and English capital, and it apparently commenced operating in 1894. A key figure in the early bank was Jean (John) Pesmatzoglou, an Alexandrian private banker who merged his bank with Bank of Athens, became chairman in 1896, and formed an alliance with Banque de l'Union parisienne in 1904. Pesmatzoglou's bank became Bank of Athens's branch in Alexandria, Egypt, where there was a large community of Greeks. In 1895 the Bank established branches in London, Constantinople, Smyrna, and Khartoum in the Sudan. It established a second branch in the UK, at Manchester, in 1902.

In 1906, Bank of Athens acquired Industrial Credit Bank (Τράπεζα Επαγγελματικής Πίστεως; est. 1873 in Athens). It had opened a branch in Istanbul in 1905 and this transferred to Bank of Athens. Bank of Athens may also have had a branch in Smyrna. By 1910 Bank of Athens bank had added branches in Crete at Chania, Candia, and Rethymno, and Trebizond and Samsoun in the Ottoman Empire.

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