In the old days, to send a letter to your local banker and be sure that he received it, you had to send it to the post office.

No. 1… The P.O. Box with this magic number in Jiddah was that of the fi rst foreign bank to be set up locally: Banque de l’Indochine, which was later to become Banque Indosuez. The number of this P.O. Box, impregnated with history, knowledge and vision, meant everything; it gave us indirect publicity and mysteriously succeeded in making clients feel proud of being customers, and newcomers privileged about becoming just that.

As early as 1908, the Bank set up a branch in Djibouti to accompany the construction of the railway line to Ethiopia. On completion of the project, the town became a maritime port for Ethiopia, and the Bank an indispensable institution for business fi nancing in the region. Backed up by its experience in Indochina, it did not hesitate to assert itself as an issuing Bank in the area. This privileged position came to an end in 1949. The Bank then had to face competition and compensate for the loss of its issuing privileges.

• With a focus on client follow-up and service, i.e. the business of first-generation Private Banking, it decided to "follow" its clients and open up branches in the ports on the Red Sea. At the instigation of Naçer Ali Ossman, its adviser for the Middle East, the Bank set up a branch in Jiddah in 1949 (initially called "The French” and special feature The long-established presence of the Banque de l’Indochine in the Middle East undoubtedly gave it a head start over all its competitors. And for good reason! then "The Saudi French Bank”). In the same year, an offi ce was opened up in the port of Hodeida in North Yemen, as Aden was controlled by the British at that time.
  
  There has been a long-standing presence in the Levant. Beirut rapidly became the only stable capital in a country with a free economy and in a troubled and staunchly socialist region. Capital fl owed in from various countries, and the French banks joined up with local banks to look after it.
  
  Crises in 1973, 1979 and 1990. The oil revenues coursed through the veins of the network: from Jiddah to Paris or London, via Lausanne, Geneva and Luxembourg, everything possible was done to satisfy clients’ demands effi ciently and anticipate their future needs.
  
  1996: Indosuez joined the Crédit Agricole Group, which acquired Crédit Lyonnais between 2003 and 2005, and Calyon came into being. With Egypt, the Emirates and Syria, through the Saudi French Bank, the presence of Calyon in the Middle East keeps on expanding to cater for a clientele whose needs have since changed. We are now in the second generation of Private Banking, and standard banking services also include fi scal planning, portfolio and performance. Private Banking has become a business in itself. It will, of course, rely on the Calyon network, but now it must have its own brand name. Private Banking is therefore hoisting its fl ag alongside that of Calyon in the Emirates and Bahrain, and is setting up business directly in Qatar, Israel and Lebanon.