It was founded in 1870 by a group of
bourgeoisie financiers, landowners and
intelligentsia. The initiator was the financier
Leopold Stanisław Kronenberg (1812-1878). The first president of the bank was
Jozef Zamoyski. By 1872, the bank had branches and offices in
St Petersburg,
Moscow,
Berlin,
Gdańsk (Commerzbank in Warschau),
Szczecin and
Łódź, and representative offices in
Włocławek,
Płock,
Grójec, Guzów,
Lublin and
Rawa Mazowiecka. In subsequent years, it opened branches in other cities, including
Sosnowiec (1895),
Częstochowa (1897) and
Kalisz (1898). In the early years of the twentieth century the bank was the largest private bank in Polish lands and one of the few leading financial services to trade with Russia and Western Europe. During this period, the bank's turnover fluctuated at the level of 2 billion rubles, which was greater than the sum of the then budget of the
Russian Empire. The bank made a significant contribution to the construction of the railway network and major industrial plants in the
Polish Kingdom. In the 1920s and 1930s the bank represented the Polish government's assets in numerous international companies, notably the
Danzig Shipyard. The bank did not stop its activities during the two world wars, it only limited activity. During World War II, the bank's branches in the
areas annexed by Germany were liquidated, while those in the
General Government operated under the strict control of the occupation authorities. Reactivated in 1945, the bank was a private industrial and commercial company and cooperative. As one of the three banks which escaped formal nationalization after the war, it was subjected to controls of a government commissioner and the state took a significant amount of shares. During the
People's Republic of Poland it was one of two banks (along with
Pekao SA), operating as a
joint stock company. After 1945, the bank was the main Polish foreign correspondent bank, and in 1964 it received the official monopoly on Polish foreign trade transactions. During the political transformation, the bank (especially a bank branch in Luxembourg) had played a significant role in the scandal of the Foreign Debt Service Fund
(Fundusz Obsługi Zadłużenia Zagranicznego - FOZZ) Zbigniew Masłowski, the Director of the Commercial Bank in Luxembourg in the years 1985 - 1990, tried to oppose this practice. A large number of foreign exchange operations conducted by FOZZ were only through the bank. An inspection of the bank by the
Supreme Audit Office (Poland), led by Inspector Halina Ładomirska in 1991-1992 revealed numerous irregularities. The report shows that during the period of
foreign exchange market control, they were operated to the detriment of the Polish economy with estimated losses during these two years of 5-10 billion dollars. In 1997, the bank was privatized. , main headquarters
Citibank acquired 91.4 percent of Bank Handlowy's shares in 2000, and in 2001 merged it with its own subsidiary Citibank (Poland) SA. Currently, the largest shareholder is Citibank, NA (since 14 August 2007, they have 75% of the shares and 75% of votes at the AGM). Since June 1997, Bank Handlowy has been listed on the
Warsaw Stock Exchange, and is listed on the
WIG20 index. In 2021
Elżbieta Światopełk-Czetwertyńska became the CEO of the bank, replacing Sławomira Sikory who held the position since 2003. In May 2025, Bank Handlowy announced the sale of its consumer banking business to
VeloBank, in order to concentrate its business on institutions and corporations. At the time of the approval of the sale by the
Polish Financial Supervision Authority in December 2025, assets included PLN22.1 billion in deposits, PLN6 billion in loans and PLN8.9 billion in assets under management. ==List of directors==