İş Bank’s Role in constituting National Merchants During the First Years of the Republic

During the first years of the Turkish Republic, giving prominence to national economic matters was regarded as a necessity of the nation state s formation. For this reason, financial institutions, organized by the country itself in order to provide the economic framework for Turkish- Muslim merchants, became an important goal. The government got into a process of trying to build up national banks. İş Bank was the first bank which was constructed this way. İş Bank, transferred the country s savings to Turkish entrepreneurs in order to meet the demands of domestic trade and industry, while contributing to the growth of private capital. These events led the way to the establishment of new merchant organizations and principal accumulations and appeared to contribute to the formation of domestic merchants.