Bank Leumi (, lit. National Bank; ) is an Israeli bank. It was founded on February 27, 1902, in Jaffa as the Anglo-Palestine Company as subsidiary of the Jewish Colonial Trust (Jüdische Kolonialbank) Limited formed before in London by members of the Zionist movement to promote the industry, construction, agriculture, and infrastructure of the land hoped to ultimately become Israel. Today, Bank Leumi is Israel's largest bank (by total assets as of 2015), with overseas offices in Luxembourg,[3] US, Switzerland, the UK, Mexico, Uruguay, Romania, Jersey, and China.[4]
Though nationalized in 1981, now Bank Leumi is mainly in private hands, with the government as the largest single shareholder, with 14.8% of the stock, as of June 2006. The other major shareholders are Shlomo Eliyahu and Barnea Investments,[5] which each hold 10% of the stock, constituting the control core of the bank. Sixty percent of the bank's stocks are held by the public and traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.