ZiraatBank BH d.d. was granted the right to operate and provide banking services in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1996, and in March 1997 it started its work in Sarajevo as the first bank in Bosnia and Herzegovina with foreign capital.
ZiraatBank BH d.d. is a subsidiary of Turkish state Ziraat Bankasi A.S. which offers you all kinds of banking activities in Bosnia and Herzegovina: domestic and external payment transactions via swift; currency exchange; issuance and management of charge cards; issuance and management of internationally valid credit cards; consumer loans; housing loans; auto loans,; business loans; documentary affairs and guarantees; Western union; e-banking; accounts and deposits; ATM services; POS terminals.
Significant business dates of ZiraatBank BH dd:
1996 - Banking Agency license to operate and provide banking services in BiH
1997 - Bank started operating
1998 - The bank becomes a member of SWIFT
1999 - The Bank is granted a VISA, Eurocard and Mastercard license for issuing and accepting
international cards
1999 - The first in BiH, ZiraatBank begins issuing cards to clients
2000 - The Bank becomes a member of the Western Union Group
2002 - The first bank in BiH based on profitability criteria per employee
2003 - Introduction of electronic banking service
2004 - Capital increase to the amount of KM 50,000,000.00
2006 - The first chip credit card in BiH
TC Ziraat Bankasi AS
As the largest state-owned bank of the Republic of Turkey, it has 8 domestic subsidiaries, 9 foreign subsidiary banks, 22 foreign branches and over 1700 branches in the Republic of Turkey.
During the first half of the 19th century in the Ottoman Empire, foreign banks began to operate within the country's territory in line with the adoption of Western models of trade and financing. At those times, there was not any sufficient capital accumulation for the establishment of a banking system having a national character, and it was not possible to speak of the existence of a national bank as a source build tool.
The section of the population who suffered from this situation was the farmers, which constituted the vast majority of the working population were. The agricultural sector had been completely abandoned to their fate and as a result, a large group of farmers facing financial hardship were constantly in need of loans provided by private individuals as there was not any corporate financial structure available to which they could apply for loans.
The idea that the State should intervene with the agricultural lending business in order to find remedies to the problems of the downtrodden farmers was gradually finding its place in the newspapers of the time and in the official circles.
Mithat Pasha, the governor at that time of the Nis city in Yugoslavia, which was then under the ruling of the Ottoman Empire, had already achieved successful outcomes in various fields and also closely witnessed the severe conditions which the farmers had to face. As a result of his surveys, he concluded that an organization in that field was imperative and State aid was needed to help to rescue farmers from the hands of loan sharks but it was also important that such aid had to be supported by a public action. Thus, an organization called "Homeland Funds" was established by and under the auspices of the State in 1863, led by Mithat Pasha, utilizing the resources raised by the farmers. This initiative went down in history as the first example of the national banking and constituted the basis of today's Ziraat Bank.
