The Frankfurter Bank was a German bank founded in 1854 in Frankfurt, which issued its own banknotes until 1901. On 1970/01/01, it merged with the Berliner Handels-Gesellschaft to form Berliner Handels- und Frankfurter Bank, generally referred to as BHF Bank until 2017 and since then as ODDO BHF.[1]
History
The Frankfurter Bank was founded in 1854 to serve as a bank of issue for the then-autonomous Free City of Frankfurt, realizing a project that had long been under discussion but was accelerated by the nearby establishment of the Darmstädter Bank the previous year.
The bank was sponsored by local banking houses including M. A. Rothschild & Söhne, Bethmann Bank, and Grunelius & Co., and authorized by the Frankfurt municipal council; the initial share subscription was oversubscribed 16 times, above all expectations. Its first general manager was Wilhelm Isaac Gillé. The bank issued banknotes denominated in Guilders, by then the monetary standard in the South German area of which Frankfurt was part. Together with the Bank of Bremen, it was viewed as more independent than most other banks of issue in Germany, which were generally under direct government control even when they were not government-owned.[2]