Mizrahi-Tefahot Bank

Mizrahi-Tefahot Bank is a major Israeli banking group, active in retail, mortgage, commercial, domestic and international banking. It is commonly described by the bank as Israel’s third-largest bank by assets and is especially prominent in housing credit, where it has held the largest market share among Israeli banking groups in recent Bank of Israel surveys.^[1][4]

Overview

Mizrahi-Tefahot Bank Ltd. is incorporated in Israel and operates as a public company whose shares trade on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. The bank states that it was established as a public company limited by shares on June 6, 1923, and that its shares were first listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in 1963.^[1] The TASE security page identifies the bank’s listed share as “MIZRAHI TEFAHOT” with the symbol MZTF.^[5]

The group is one of Israel’s large universal banks, alongside Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi and Israel Discount Bank. Its activities include personal current accounts, deposits, savings products, mortgage lending, credit to households and businesses, payment services, guarantees, investment-related services and international banking. The bank’s own overview describes it as offering international, commercial, domestic and personal banking services.^[1]

Mizrahi-Tefahot is supervised by the Bank of Israel through the Israeli banking supervision framework. The bank’s corporate information page says it is supervised by the Bank of Israel, and the Bank of Israel’s banking-system review places Mizrahi-Tefahot within the group of Israeli banking groups monitored in its analysis of assets, credit and deposits.^[3][4]

History and formation

The institution traces its roots to Bank Mizrahi, founded in 1923 by the World Mizrachi Movement. According to the bank’s history, Bank Mizrahi opened to the public in 1925 and later merged with Hapoel Hamizrahi Bank in 1969 to form United Mizrahi Bank Ltd.^[3] The bank’s overview similarly states that Mizrahi Tefahot Bank Ltd. was established as a public company limited by shares on June 6, 1923.^[1]

A central event in the modern bank’s structure was the combination of United Mizrahi Bank and Tefahot Israel Mortgage Bank. The bank’s legal notice states that on December 31, 2004, Tefahot Israel Mortgage Bank Ltd. merged with United Mizrahi Bank Ltd., with Tefahot’s assets, rights and obligations transferred to Mizrahi Bank; the merged bank subsequently changed its name to Mizrahi Tefahot Bank Ltd.^[2] The bank’s historical summary dates the operational merger to the beginning of 2005 and characterizes it as a combination of a commercial-retail bank with Israel’s largest mortgage bank.^[3]

The bank’s ownership history includes state control following Israel’s 1983 bank shares crisis and a later privatization process. The bank’s timeline says ownership was transferred to the State of Israel in 1983, that privatization began in 1995 when the Ofer-Wertheim Group acquired 26% of the shares, and that the group increased its holding to 51% in 1997.^[3] The bank’s more recent overview says the Ofer and Wertheim groups held about 41.47% of its shares, with the remaining shares held by the public, as of the date reported on the bank’s overview page.^[1]

Business lines

Mizrahi-Tefahot’s business model combines a full-service commercial bank with a mortgage franchise inherited from Tefahot. The bank lists accounts for employees, self-employed clients, business owners, students, soldiers and young people among its services, as well as deposits, savings plans, mortgage products, business loans and guarantees for construction projects.^[3]

The bank is especially associated with mortgages. Its corporate page says the Tefahot mortgage business has helped provide mortgages to more than 900,000 families since its foundation.^[3] In the Israeli banking system, this specialization is visible in market-share data: the Bank of Israel’s 2024 annual survey states that Mizrahi-Tefahot Group had the largest market share in housing credit, about 36%, even though it held only about 18% of the banking system’s total assets.^[4]

Business banking is another important activity. The bank provides credit to business customers, finances building projects and issues guarantees linked to apartment-sale assurance requirements, according to its service description.^[3] The bank’s 2025 results announcement said loans to the public reached NIS 400.5 billion at the end of 2025, while deposits from the public reached NIS 448.4 billion.^[6]

Subsidiaries and acquisitions

Mizrahi-Tefahot has expanded through acquisitions and internal mergers. In 2008, it completed a transaction to purchase Bank Hapoalim’s 50% stake in Bank Yahav, together with the Company for Economic and Cultural Projects for State Employees Ltd.^[3] Bank Yahav remains a significant part of the branch network: the bank’s overview reported 206 branches and business centers in Israel as of December 31, 2025, including 56 Bank Yahav branches.^[1]

In 2009, Adanim Bank, then a wholly owned subsidiary, was merged into Mizrahi-Tefahot.^[3] In September 2020, the bank completed the purchase of all shares of Bank Igud, also known as Union Bank of Israel. Mizrahi-Tefahot’s corporate page states that Bank Igud became a wholly owned subsidiary after the transaction and that the process of merging Bank Igud into Mizrahi-Tefahot was completed at the end of 2022.^[3]

The group also includes subsidiaries that provide complementary financial services. The bank names Etgar, Mizrahi Tefahot Trust Company Ltd. and Mizrahi-Tefahot Discounting and Finance Ltd. among group companies.^[3]

Market position

Mizrahi-Tefahot is generally classified as one of the five largest Israeli banking groups. The bank’s own overview describes it as Israel’s third-largest bank by assets.^[1] The Bank of Israel’s 2024 banking-system survey also described Mizrahi-Tefahot as the third-largest group by total assets and noted that it is particularly prominent in household housing credit.^[4]

The bank’s 2025 annual results announcement reported that, according to the financial statements of Israel’s five largest banking groups, Mizrahi-Tefahot Group had a 21.9% market share in loans to the public and an 18.8% market share in deposits from the public as of September 30, 2025.^[6] The same announcement reported 2025 net profit of more than NIS 5.6 billion and return on equity of 17%.^[6]

Regulation and reporting

As an Israeli banking corporation, Mizrahi-Tefahot is part of the regulatory perimeter of the Bank of Israel and the Supervisor of Banks. The Bank of Israel publishes banking-system reviews that discuss the group’s credit, deposit and asset shares, as well as reforms affecting retail banking, open banking, mortgage comparisons and switching between banks.^[4]

As a listed company, Mizrahi-Tefahot is also subject to Israeli securities-market disclosure rules and uses the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and the Israel Securities Authority reporting systems for public filings. The bank’s investor-relations page states that its immediate reports are published in Hebrew on the Israel Securities Authority and Tel Aviv Stock Exchange websites.^[7]

International presence

Although Mizrahi-Tefahot is principally an Israeli bank, it also maintains foreign operations. The bank states that it has two foreign branches, in London and Los Angeles.^[1] Its corporate page similarly refers to international operations using branches in the United Kingdom and the United States.^[3] These offices form part of the bank’s international banking activities rather than changing its primary identity as an Israeli banking group.