Banca Commerciale Italiana Trust Co.

Banca Commerciale Italiana (BCI) established Banca Commerciale Italiana Trust Co. of New York (BCITNY) in 1924 and closed it in 1939.

East Harlem branch

In 1917 Lodovico Toeplitz, chief of the Foreign Department of BCI visited New York. In January 1918 BCI established a branch in New York on Broadway. The bank's aim was to finance imports to the US from Italy, to fund acceptance credits and to gather the deposits of Italian migrants to the US. In 1921 the bank transferred its branch to a building on Williams Street that BCI had bought. In 1924, following changes in US regulations, BCI decided to open a US subsidiary, Banca Commerciale Italiana Trust Co. of New York, in order to be able to continue to gather deposits. Four years later, in March to June 1928, Giuseppe Toeplitz came to New York to oversee the opening of Bancomit Corp., which BCI established better to operate in US real estate markets. In time, BCIT came to have offices on 6th Avenue and Mulberry Street, and in Harlem, South Brooklyn, and Long Island City.

In 1929 BCI established two more subsidiaries, Banca Commerciale Italiana Trust Co. of Boston, and Banca Commerciale Italiana Trust Co. of Philadelphia.

In 1933, Adolfo Rossi of BCI traveled to New York to implement a reorganization of BCI's operations in North America.

In 1938 BCI liquidated both the Boston and the Philadelphia operations.

In February 1939, BCI liquidated BCITNY and transferred its assets to Manufacturers Trust Co. of New York. Two years later, after the US declared war on Italy on 11 December 1941, the United States Federal Reserve sequestrated and liquidated the assets of BCI's branch in the US. BCI would not return to New York until 6 March 1969 when it opened a branch there.