Focus on Middle East and Africa

With much of Europe in ruins, overseas expansion in the years immediately after the end of World War II was limited largely to opening new branches and buildings in existing franchises on other continents, notably Latin America and Asia. A particular focus was Japan, where the U.S. military occupation was creating new opportunities. In 1955, operations were extended to four new countries - Egypt, Liberia, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia. The bank's first Middle East branch opened in Cairo in April, followed by a second in Beirut in October, and a third in Jeddah in December. In Liberia, it acquired Bank of Monrovia in September of the same year. In 1958, African operations were expanded to South Africa, where the bank had had a brief presence after World War I. The beginnings of a pan-African network came in 1965 with the acquisition of 40 percent of Banque Internationale pour l'Afrique Occidentale. As well as three branches in France, this organization had five branches each in Ivory Coast and Senegal, four each in Cameroon and Niger, three each in Gabon and Nigeria, two each in Congo, Mauritania, and Upper Volta, and one each in the Central African Republic, Dahomey (now Benin), Mali, and Togo. The Gulf presence expanded to include a Dubai branch in 1964. In 1967, a second branch opened in Saudi Arabia, in Riyadh. In 1969, First National City Corporation, the bank holding company formed in 1968, acquired 35 percent of Iranians' Bank, a local bank with four offices in Iran. An office in Tehran followed in 1974, the same year that First National City Bank opened a Jordan branch. In 1975, a new branch was opened in North Yemen.