Bank Hapoalim — BrandWiki

Bank Hapoalim

Overview

Bank Hapoalim B.M.

type	Public
traded as	tase: POLI
foundation	1921
industry	Banking, financial services
hq location city	Tel Aviv
hq location country	Israel
owner	Shari Arison (15.74%)
key people	Dov Kotler, CEO Noam Hanegbi, Chairman

Bank Hapoalim ( lit. The Workers' Bank) is one of the largest banks in Israel, established in 1921. The bank offers a broad range of financial services to retail, corporate, and institutional customers, with a focus on retail banking services.[2] It operates a network of more than 250 branches and offices in Israel and abroad. Bank Hapoalim is a prominent player in the Israeli banking sector, with a significant market share.

The company is traded in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange under the symbol POLI, and is part of the Tel Aviv 35 Index. Noam Hanegbi was appointed chairman of the board in 2025, and Yadin Antebi was appointed CEO in August 2024, succeeding former CEO Dov Kotler.

History

The bank was established in 1921 by the Histadrut, the Israeli trade union congress (lit. "General Federation of Laborers in the Land of Israel") and the Zionist Organisation.

The bank was owned by the Histadrut until 1983, when it was nationalized following the Bank Stock Crisis. The bank was held by the Israeli government until 1996 when it was sold to a group of investors led by Ted Arison.[3]

The Bank's Organizational Structure

Bank Hapoalim Group operates in Israel across various banking sectors and related capital market activities through four main divisions: the Corporate Division, the Retail Division, the Financial Markets and International Banking Division, and the Innovation and Strategy Division.[14]

Corporate Division

This division serves business clients. In the large corporations sector, it operates through industry-specialized sectors, while in the Middle Market sector, it operates through business centers distributed across Israel. Additionally, the division provides customer service via dedicated service centers offering operational support and through a foreign trade system that serves all bank customers.[14][15]

Retail Division

This division caters to households, private banking clients, foreign residents, and small businesses through 204 branches, investment consulting centers, and a mobile branch serving customers at approximately 37 service points (about half of which are in retirement homes). It also offers various direct channels, including self-service machines in branches and customer premises, "Hapoalim Internet," "Hapoalim Mobile," the "Hapoalim by Phone" call center, a voice system for information retrieval and transactions, and social media inquiry services.[14][16]

Poalim Equity

The real investments and investment banking arm of Bank Hapoalim, invests in equity and debt in private companies across various sectors in Israel and worldwide. The company provides loans and offers integrated growth solutions for private companies.[17]

Additionally, Poalim Equity operates an alternative investment platform, which includes investments in local and international private equity funds, the establishment of funds, and syndication investments for institutional entities. The company also provides advisory services for investment banking, supports mergers and acquisitions processes, facilitates private capital raises, and assists with public offerings of Israeli or Israel-affiliated companies on U.S. stock exchanges through a partnership with the American investment bank William Blair.[18]

Poalim Equity holds a 20% stake in Leader Capital Markets, one of Israel's leading underwriting firms. As a subsidiary of Bank Hapoalim, Poalim Equity invests in equity and debt in private companies, grants loans, and provides integrated growth solutions to a wide range of businesses.[18]

Financial Markets and International Banking Division

This division coordinates the bank group's activities in most capital market areas in Israel and abroad. These activities include providing securities trading services (brokerage), securities custody, currency and derivatives trading, research and consulting services, support for financial asset managers, investment portfolio management, investment banking, underwriting services, and issuance management.[14]

Innovation and Strategy Division

This division is responsible for the development of the "Bit" payment application.[14]

Controversies and criticism

Tax evasion and money laundering

On 30 April 2020, the bank was found to be complicit in tax evasion and money laundering relating to FIFA and bidding for the World Cup. It was ordered to pay fine of $874.3 million after pleading guilty to the first charge, which involved helping US taxpayers to stash some $7.6 billion in more than 5,500 secret Swiss and Israeli bank accounts. It was the second-largest recovery by the US Department of Justice since it began investigating the facilitation of US tax evasion by foreign banks in 2008.[23]

It was ordered to pay $30 million in forfeitures and fines in relation to the second charge, which pertained to helping launder more than $20 million in bribes and kickbacks for officials involved in the corruption scandal that embroiled football's world governing body FIFA in 2015.[23] Internal Revenue Service criminal investigation chief Don Fort said, "There is no excuse for a foreign financial institution to unlawfully assist wealthy Americans in flouting their responsibilities to pay their taxes. With today's guilty plea, Bank Hapoalim is taking responsibility for their role in deliberately breaking the law and undermining the integrity of this nation's tax system."

Assistant attorney general Brian Benczkowski stated that "for nearly five years, Bank Hapoalim employees used the US financial system to launder tens of millions of dollars in bribe payments to corrupt soccer officials in multiple countries", while William Sweeney, assistant director of the FBI's New York field office, said that "Bank Hapoalim admits executives looked the other way, and allowed illicit activity to continue even when employees discovered the scheme and reported it."[23]

Involvement in Israeli settlements

In January 2014, Danske Bank and the Dutch pension fund PGGM blacklisted Bank Hapoalim for its involvement in the financing of settlements in the Palestinian territories.[24]

In October 2017, Danish pension firm Sampension banned investment in Hapoalim alongside three other companies operating in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including Bank Leumi, Israeli telecoms firm Bezeq and German firm Heidelberg Cement.[25]

On 12 February 2020, the United Nations published a database of 112 companies helping to further Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as well as in the occupied Golan Heights.[26]