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TIMELINE
1923: Banco Italiano di Guayaquil, in which Banca Commerciale Italiana held a stake, founded.
1941: Banco Italiano di Guayaquil nationalized.
Thanks to Ecuador's geographic location and physical configuration, far fewer Italian emigrants chose it as their destination, opting instead for other Latin American countries.
Between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the Port of Guayaquil was an important point of transit for exports, especially cocoa. An Italian community had settled in the area, led there by a group of Ligurian sailors who had done much to promote the development of Ecuador. In 1923, several of its most affluent members founded Banco Italiano di Guayaquil, with a branch in Manta. The bank, which had been promoted by the Italian businessman and politician Leopoldo Parodi Delfino and Banca Commerciale Italiana (BCI), was created as an offshoot of Banque Française & Italienne pour l'Amérique du Sud (Sudameris).
Very active in helping to finance the city's traders and industrialists, Banco Italiano di Guayaquil had also been promoted by the Compagnia Italiana dell'Ecuador (CIDE), in which BCI held a stake. Indeed, the latter had set itself the task of harnessing Italian resources in order to improve the political and economic conditions of Ecuador, at the time still quite underdeveloped, a project which eventually turned into a major financial drain.
In 1940, following an inspection by Giovanni Serventi, manager of the Colombian branch of Sudameris, BCI decided it would be advisable to reduce its stake in Banco Italiano di Guayaquil, and in 1941 it sold all of its shares in the bank. In that same year Banco Italiano di Guayaquil was nationalized and renamed Banco Nacional de Ecuador; it later became Banco de Guayaquil.
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| BIBLIOGRAPHY |
ASI-BCI, VCA; June 1, 1927; vol. 9, p. 208-210
ASI-BCI, Official Letter-Books of the Chairman, nn. 35/296, 36/203, 332, 415, 37/259-260
ASI-BCI, Secretariat of the Board of Directors, cart. 11, fascc. 2-8
ASI-BCI, Secreteriat of managing director Joseph Toeplitz, cart. 50, fasc. 2; corrispondence with Giuseppe Volpi e Leopoldo Parodi Delfino
ASI-BCI, Foreign Service, cart. 26, fasc. 4; cart. 43, fasc. 4 |