The First International Bank of Israel () is an

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

-based

bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...

. Its commercial base consists primarily of large corporate clients as well as end-market consumers.First International Bank of Israel (FIBI) - Profile - Dun's 100

Dun & Bradstreet The Dun & Bradstreet Holdings, Inc. (D&B) is an American company that provides commercial data, analytics, and insights for businesses. Headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, the company offers a wide range of products and services for risk a ...

The company is traded in the

Tel Aviv Stock Exchange The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE; ), colloquially known as The Bursa, is the only public stock exchange in Israel and a public company itself, listed on its own exchange since August 1, 2019. It is regulated by the ''Securities Law (1968)'' a ...

under the symbol "FIBI", and is part of the Tel Aviv 35 Index.

History

First International Bank of Israel was founded in the early 1970s when then Israeli Finance Minister

Pinchas Sapir Pinchas Sapir (; born Pinchas Kozlowski 15 October 1906 – 12 August 1975) was an Israeli politician during the first three decades following the country's founding. He held two important ministerial posts, Minister of Finance (1963–68 and ...

approved the merger of several smaller banks into the former.

Edmond Safra Edmond Jacob Safra (; 6 August 1932 – 3 December 1999) was a Lebanese-Brazilian billionaire banker and philanthropist of Syrian descent. He continued his family tradition of banking in Brazil and Switzerland, and was married to Lily Watkins ...

(through his distant cousin Jacques Nasser) acquired control of FIBI in the 1980s. After Safra's death, the

Safra Group The J. Safra Group is a conglomerate comprising an international network of companies controlled by the Vicky Safra family, comprising banking and financial institutions and industrial operations. It is present in the United States, Europe, th ...

sold off its business interests in Israel. As of 2010, FIBI's largest current shareholder is the FIBI Holding Company Ltd, whose largest shareholder is the Bino-Liberman Group; in addition, the

Israel Discount Bank Israel Discount Bank, Ltd. () is an Israeli banking institution that offers a range of financial services, including retail banking, commercial banking, private banking, and financial services. The bank, headquartered in Tel Aviv, operates 112 ...

holds a significant block of shares. The bank opened branches in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

in 1981, and in

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

in 1984. In 2006 it acquired a 68% interest in

Bank Otsar Ha-Hayal Bank Otsar HaHayal () is an Israeli bank. History British Mandate era Otsar HaHayal was founded in 1946 by the British mandatory authorities to provide banking services to Jewish veterans of the British armed forces. It later provided these ser ...

for NIS 702 million. It is notable for being the only major bank in Israel which was not involved in the bank stock crisis in Israel in the early-1980s and as such was the only prominent bank in the country not

nationalized Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization contrasts with priv ...

as result of the crisis. For a long time, FIBI was unique among Israeli banks in offering complete paperwork in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

. In 2015, Tungsten Corporation plc acquired FIBI's UK division for £30 million.

Subsidiaries

Bank Massad Bank Massad () is an Israeli bank with 21 branches and branches throughout Israel. History Bank Massad was founded in 1929 as the Massad Mutual Loans and Savings Company () by Histadrut HaMorim (Israel's teachers' trade union). Today it is a su ...

(51%) – jointly owned with Israel's teachers'

trade union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

U-Bank Israel UBank is an Australia, Australian direct bank, operating as a division of National Australia Bank (NAB). It was established in 2008, providing savings and home loans online as well as over the phone. UBank operates under NAB's banking licence ...

– specializes in

private banking Private banking is a general description for banking, investment and other financial services provided by banks and financial institutions primarily serving high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) – those with very high income or substantial asset ...

* Poaley Agudat Israel Bank (PAGI) – serving mainly the

Jewish Orthodox Orthodox Judaism is a collective term for the traditionalist branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Torah, Written and Oral Torah, Oral, as literally revelation, revealed by God in Ju ...

community

Controversy

On 12 February 2020, the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

published a

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...

of 112 companies helping to further

Israeli settlement Israeli settlements, also called Israeli colonies, are the civilian communities built by Israel throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. They are populated by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Israeli Jews, Jewish identity or ethni ...

activity in the

West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

, including

East Jerusalem East Jerusalem (, ; , ) is the portion of Jerusalem that was Jordanian annexation of the West Bank, held by Jordan after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, as opposed to West Jerusalem, which was held by Israel. Captured and occupied in 1967, th ...

, as well as in the

Golan Heights The Golan Heights, or simply the Golan, is a basaltic plateau at the southwest corner of Syria. It is bordered by the Yarmouk River in the south, the Sea of Galilee and Hula Valley in the west, the Anti-Lebanon mountains with Mount Hermon in t ...

. These settlements are considered illegal under international law. First International Bank of Israel was listed on the database on account of its "provision of services and utilities supporting the maintenance and existence of settlements" and "banking and financial operations helping to develop, expand or maintain settlements and their activities" in these occupied territories. On 5 July 2021,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

's largest pension fund

Kommunal Landspensjonskasse Kommunal Landspensjonskasse Gjensidig Forsikringsselskap or KLP is an Oslo-based mutual organization, mutual insurance company that manages the pensions of municipal employees in Norway. As of 31 March 2021, the fund had assets of Norwegian krone ...

said it would divest from First International Bank of Israel together with 15 other business entities implicated in the UN report for their links to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

References

https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/israels-first-international-bank-q1-profit-drops-says-well-positioned-wartime-2024-05-28/

External links

* {{Authority control The First International Bank of Israel Banks established in 1972 1972 establishments in Israel Companies based in Tel Aviv Companies listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange Companies in the TA-35 Index

History

Subsidiaries

Controversy

See also

References

External links