Capital & Finance · 35 stories · Updated Sep 11, 2026
Who finances Israel's economy, how banks and institutional investors put money to work, and where competition and regulation change the terms.
Lead storyFive banks control ~98% of Israeli banking assets. Combined FY2025 net profit: NIS 32 billion (record, up from NIS 29.5B in 2024). On May 6 2026, the Competition Authority declared them a concentration group — opposed by…
Read →Five banks control approximately 98% of Israel''s banking assets. In May 2026, the Israel Competition Authority formally declared them a concentration group. The Bank of Israel publicly opposed the move. That disagreement now sits at the center of Israeli financial regulation.
The five banks — Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, Israel Discount Bank, Mizrahi Tefahot Bank, and First International Bank of Israel — control approximately NIS 3 trillion (approximately $1 trillion) in banking sector assets. Hapoalim and Leumi alone hold approximately 48% of all assets and just over 50% of public deposits. The five together generated NIS 29.5 billion (approximately $7.8 billion) in combined net profit in 2024.
The Competition Authority''s May 6, 2026 concentration group declaration is the first such declaration applied to the Israeli banking sector. Associated directives take effect May 6, 2027.
Layer 1 — Commercial banking. The top five banks plus Bank of Jerusalem, smaller domestic banks, foreign bank branches, and digital-only entrants (One Zero, Bank Esh Israel). Wave 1 covers this layer in full.
Layer 2 — Institutional capital (forthcoming Wave 2). Five large insurance/pension groups and specialist provident fund managers, together managing NIS 2.75+ trillion as of end-2024.
Layer 3 — Insurance (forthcoming Wave 2). Life, general, and health insurance across the same five integrated groups.
Israeli banking underpins every other sector The Olam covers. The mortgage market shapes Real Estate. Institutional capital allocation shapes Sovereign Capital. Defense-industrial banking shapes Defense. Cross-border tax-residency planning around aliyah runs through the banking layer.
Bank Hapoalim · Bank Leumi · Israel Discount Bank · Mizrahi Tefahot Bank · First International Bank of Israel
Long-form reference entries in Banking & Institutional Capital
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Israeli pension administration is one of the most concentrated financial markets in the country — and the Big Five insurers run almost all of it.
The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange spent 65 years as a members-only club. Since a 2018 demutualization, a New York hedge fund is its largest shareholder, hal…
Israel's largest bank. Founded 1921 by the Histadrut. TASE: POLI. FY2025 record net profit NIS 9.8B (+30%), ROE 15.9%. CEO Yadin Antebi (since 2024).…
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First International Bank of Israel (TASE: FIBI) is Israel's fifth-largest bank, controlled by the Bino-Liberman Group via a federated model of four su…
Menora Mivtachim Holdings (TASE: MMHD) is one of Israel's three largest institutional financial groups — NIS 300B+ ($89B) AUM, ~30% of Israel's new pe…
Israel's #3 bank. Founded 1935 by Leon Recanati (Salonika). FY2025 net income NIS 4.14B, ROE 12.6%. CEO Avi Levi. IDB Bank (US), Mercantile Discount (…
Israel's mortgage bank. ~35% mortgage market share. FY2025 net income NIS 5.63B (+3.2%), ROE 17.0%, cost-income 35.9%. CEO Moshe Lari. Loans NIS 400.5…
Israel's #2 bank and oldest (founded 1902 as Anglo-Palestine Bank). FY2025 record net income NIS 10.3B ($3.2B), ROE 15.8%, efficiency ratio 29.3% (amo…
