In the financial sector, the past has an unparalleled importance in determining the present and providing solid guarantees for the future.

It was the 19th century and the memory of Napoleon’s military campaigns was still fresh in the minds of Europeans. The world was becoming well aware of the effects of the Industrial Revolution as the economies of Europe, the Mediterranean and North America flourished, all thanks to major inventions - the steam engine and electricity - and the movement of ships, caravans and now railroads that transported and sold agricultural products and the most diverse merchandise.

Financing for this intense commercial movement came from bankers, who would one day become legends. Families like the Rothschilds in Europe, the Rockfellers later in America and the Safras in the Middle East began a lineage of financiers, laying the foundation for modern banking based on improved communication and the growing demand for trade between cities.

Particularly intense was the exchange of merchandise between the ports and cities of Europe, such as Paris, Nice, Marseille, Madrid, Barcelona, Naples, Trieste, Genoa and Venice with cities like Alexandria, Athens, Istanbul, Beirut, Damascus, Aleppo, Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. In this region of the Middle East, members of one Jewish family, known for a long tradition of dedication to financing in gold, earning them, in turn, the Arab name for the color of the precious metal: Safra.