Bank Leumi
Major bank in 'Israel', founded in 1899 by the Zionist Organization as the Jewish Colonial Trust
| Bank Leumi Le-Israel B.M.
| |
|---|---|
| Trade name | Leumi |
| Logo | 
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| Founded | 27 February 1902 (as the Anglo-Palestine Company; parent Jewish Colonial Trust created 20 March 1899) |
| Founder(s) | Theodor Herzl; Zionist Organization |
| Headquarters | Tel Aviv |
| Industry | Banking |
| Subsidiaries | Bank Leumi (U.K.) P.L.C.; Leumi UK Group Limited |
| Homepage | leumi.co.il |
Bank Leumi (Bank Leumi Le-Israel B.M.; leumi means "national") is one of the largest banks in 'Israel'. It began as the financial arm of the Zionist movement. Theodor Herzl saw the need for a bank to serve the movement, which led to the creation of the Jewish Colonial Trust (Otzar Hityashvuth Hayehudim) on 20 March 1899. In 1902 the Trust's subsidiary in Palestine, the Anglo-Palestine Company, was incorporated in London; it was renamed the Anglo-Palestine Bank in 1930.[1] The US Justice Department described the group in 2014 as "one of Israel's largest banks, with subsidiaries in seven countries and more than 13,000 employees".[2]
The bank is Zionist by origin and function. It was created by the Zionist Organization to finance Jewish settlement in Palestine. It funded the founding of Tel Aviv and served as the new state's central bank from 1948 to 1954. Its UK subsidiary says the name reflects "the role we have played in the foundation and support of the State of Israel over the last century".[1] The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) lists it in its database of businesses involved in activities related to Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.[3]
Jewish Colonial Trust
Main article: Jewish Colonial Trust
In 1897 Herzl published an article titled "Jüdische Colonialbank" in the Zionist paper Die Welt. In it he argued that the Zionist movement needed financial institutions to support Jewish settlers in Palestine. According to the bank's own history, leading Jewish bankers refused to co-operate, so Herzl raised the £250,000 capital from small shareholders.[4] Herzl's own The Jewish State had proposed a "Jewish Company" for the purpose. As Louis Lipsky put it in his introduction to the 1946 edition, "'The Jewish Company' became the Bank; then more specifically, the Jewish Colonial Trust and later the Anglo-Palestine Bank."[5]
Anglo-Palestine Company and Bank
Main article: Anglo-Palestine Bank
The Anglo-Palestine Company (APC) was established in London on 27 February 1902 as a subsidiary of the Jewish Colonial Trust, with a capital of £50,000. Its first chairman was David Wolffsohn, Herzl's successor as leader of the Zionist movement. Zalman David Levontin was its first general manager. It opened its first branch in Jaffa on 2 August 1903.[4]
The APC made the loans to the Achuzat Bayit association that allowed the building of a Jewish suburb of Jaffa, later renamed Tel Aviv. It opened branches in Jerusalem, Beirut, Haifa, Hebron, Safed and Tiberias, and just before the First World War in Gaza.[4] In 1936 a company set up by its general manager, Eliezer Hoofien, financed the building of a new port at Tel Aviv. The bank's history says this was done "when the dockers of Jaffa port were boycotting the Jewish settlement".[4] The company was renamed the Anglo-Palestine Bank in 1930.[1]
Central bank of the new state
On 16 August 1948 the bank signed an agreement with the provisional government. A charter signed by Hoofien and Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion made it the government's financial agent, and the new state's first banknotes, bearing the Anglo-Palestine Bank's name, were issued that day.[4] A new company, Bank Leumi Le-Israel, was registered in Tel Aviv in 1950. On 1 May 1951 it took over the assets and obligations of the 1902 bank.[4] It acted as the central bank until the Bank of Israel was set up in 1954.[1]
United Kingdom
The bank's British arm was incorporated as a UK subsidiary in 1959.[1] Its UK companies include Bank Leumi (U.K.) P.L.C., Leumi UK Group Limited and Leumi UK Holdings Limited. The original 1902 company survives on the UK register as The Anglo Palestine Company Limited.
US tax case
On 22 December 2014 the US Department of Justice announced that the Bank Leumi Group had admitted conspiring to help US taxpayers hide income and assets in offshore accounts in 'Israel' and elsewhere. It was the first time an Israeli bank had admitted such criminal conduct. Under a deferred prosecution agreement the group agreed to pay $270 million, $157 million of it a penalty for US accounts at Leumi Private Bank in Switzerland, and handed over the names of more than 1,500 US account holders.[2]
The department said that from at least 2000 until early 2011 the group sent private bankers from 'Israel' to the United States "to meet secretly with U.S. clients at hotels, parks and coffee shops". It also helped clients use nominee companies set up in Belize and other jurisdictions, and kept undeclared accounts under assumed names or numbers.[2]
Settlements
The OHCHR database, in its 2026 version, lists "Bank Leumi Le-Israel Ltd." under three of the listed activities. Its type of involvement in the adverse impact on Palestinian self-determination is classed as "Contribution".[3] The three activities are:
- "the provision of services and utilities supporting the maintenance and existence of settlements, including transport";
- "banking and financial operations helping to develop, expand or maintain settlements and their activities, including loans for housing and the development of businesses";
- "the use of natural resources, in particular water and land, for business purposes".[3]
The first database was published by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on 28 February 2020 (A/HRC/43/71). It found that 112 of the 188 business enterprises considered for inclusion "met the required standard", and it already listed "Bank Leumi Le-Israel B.M." under two of the listed activities: (e), "the provision of services and utilities supporting the maintenance and existence of settlements, including transport", and (f), "banking and financial operations helping to develop, expand or maintain settlements and their activities, including loans for housing and the development of businesses".[6] The 2026 update (A/HRC/63/20, reported on 25 September 2026) listed 214.[3]
On 25 August 2025 Norges Bank, which manages Norway's Government Pension Fund Global, announced that it would exclude Bank Leumi Le-Israel BM from the fund, together with First International Bank of Israel, FIBI Holdings, Mizrahi Tefahot Bank, Bank Hapoalim and Caterpillar, "due to an unacceptable risk that the companies contribute to serious violations of the rights of individuals in situations of war and conflict".[7] The decision followed a recommendation by the fund's Council on Ethics dated 2 July 2025. The Council stated: "By providing financial services that are a necessary prerequisite for construction activity in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Leumi has, in the Council's assessment, contributed to the maintenance of Israeli settlements."[8] Its recommendation says that the bank had issued loans and guarantees to building contractors for construction projects in the Occupied Palestinian Territory "on several occasions in recent years, most recently in 2024", and that at the close of 2024 the fund owned 0.52 per cent of the bank's shares, worth NOK 1 billion.[9] The UN database described above also lists the bank under "banking and financial operations helping to develop, expand or maintain settlements and their activities, including loans for housing and the development of businesses".[3]
See also
- Jewish Colonial Trust
- Anglo-Palestine Bank
- Theodor Herzl
- World Zionist Organization
- Bank Hapoalim
- UK Companies with documented links to business activity in the Occupied Palestinian territories and the occupied Golan
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Belize
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Lebanon
External links
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Leumi UK, Our History, accessed 23 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 US Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, Bank Leumi Admits to Assisting U.S. Taxpayers in Hiding Assets in Offshore Bank Accounts, 22 December 2014, accessed 23 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Database of Business Enterprises Pursuant to Human Rights Council Resolutions 31/36 and 53/25, accessed 22 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Bank Leumi, The History of Bank Leumi, archived 22 January 2014, accessed 23 October 2026.
- ↑ Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State, New York: American Zionist Emergency Council, 1946; Dover reprint 1988 (Project Gutenberg ebook 25282), introduction by Louis Lipsky, accessed 23 October 2026.
- ↑ United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Database of all business enterprises involved in the activities detailed in paragraph 96 of the report of the independent international fact-finding mission to investigate the implications of the Israeli settlements on the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, A/HRC/43/71, 28 February 2020, accessed 23 October 2026.
- ↑ Norges Bank Investment Management, Decisions on exclusion, 25 August 2025, accessed 23 October 2026.
- ↑ Council on Ethics for the Government Pension Fund Global, Bank Leumi Le-Israel BM, 25 August 2025, accessed 23 October 2026.
- ↑ Council on Ethics for the Government Pension Fund Global, Recommendation to exclude Bank Leumi Le-Israel BM from the Government Pension Fund Global, 2 July 2025 (unofficial English translation), accessed 23 October 2026.