Özet:

The foundation and development of Turkish Capital Markets is mainly related to Galata Bankers, especially in the last period of The Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, because mainly foreign minorities carried out the commercial activities in The Ottoman Empire. The development of capital markets doesn’t go back to old times as far as the development of industry. In the last periods of The Ottoman Empire, Galata Bankers played important roles in the foundation of Turkish Capital Markets. In consequence, the owners of financial savings were these minorities. Among these minorities there were mainly Armenians, Greeks and Jews. Because of the place named “Galata” in Istanbul, where these minorities carried out their commercial and financial activities, they built a reputation as “Galata Bankers”. At the beginning of the 16th century the Jews, expatriated from Portugal and Spain, settled down in Ottoman Territory and they began to have a say on trade and financial matters. In the 17th century economic, industrial and commercial activities began to fall into the foreigners hands. At that time, among the Galata Bankers, the Greeks were especially dominant. Greek minorities, with the support of European States, demonstrated their predominance in commercial and economic life with their banker institutions, whose numbers reached to one hundred. The topic of this research is to discuss the commercial, economic and financial activities of Galata Bankers in The Ottoman Empire and their pioneering activities in the development of Turkish Capital Markets.

Anahtar Kelimeler: