Belfast Banking Company

The Belfast Banking Co. was formed with 337 shareholders on 2 July 1827, by a merger of the then two remaining private banks in Belfast, Batt’s and Tennant’s. In 1917 it was taken over by the Midland Bank Ltd. The Belfast Banking Co. remained mostly an “Ulster” bank, and had relatively few branches outside the Province, not opening an office in Dublin until 1892. In 1923 the bank sold to the Royal Bank of Ireland the 20 branches which it had in the newly-formed Irish Free State. Thus the bank became the only one of the Irish Joint Stock banks to operate solely in Northern Ireland. In 1965 The Northern Bank was also taken over by the Midland Bank. The Belfast was then merged into the Northern in 1970.