The Società Italiana di Credito (Itabank) was founded in Milan on 6 February 1918 under the name Società Generale Commissionaria. Its job was to represent Banca Commerciale Italiana, which had underwritten a quarter of its capital, and to assist it with its banking affairs.
In July 1919, as part of its program to expand further into Central and Eastern Europe, BCI transformed the company into a banking firm called Banca Italiana di Credito Commerciale, with branches in Trieste, Vienna and Prague. Alongside BCI (22.5%), the operation also involved a group of Trieste-based financiers (32.5%) and Camillo Castiglioni, an Italo-Austrian banker (15%).
The Società - which in 1920 had again changed its name, this time to Società Italiana di Credito Commerciale - remained under Castiglioni's strict management until 1924. After his involvement in a major scandal it passed under the direct control of BCI and was renamed Società Italiana di Credito. Its purpose was to help the Società enter the countries of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire.
In December 1934 BCI sold its majority stake in the company, with the intention of maintaining the Vienna headquarters and later transforming it into an affiliate or direct branch; in the end this plan never materialized.

ASI-BCI, VCA; July 8, 1919; vol. 5, pp. 120-121
ASI-BCI, VCA; March 5, 1935; vol. 16, pp. 89-90
ASI-BCI, International Division