Established in Istanbul by two British entrepreneurs in 1856, the Ottoman Bank (Bank-ı Osmanî) was elevated to the status of the central bank to deal with all the official financial operations of the state in 1863, transforming into a commercial bank with a well distributed network of branches at the turn of the century. The first bank archive to provide open access to researchers in Turkey after ceasing its operations in 2001, the collection reflects the complicated history of the institution as well as the last half-century of the Empire, the foundation of the Republic, and the socio-political transformations during this transitional period.