The building of the Romanian Foreign Trade Bank (Banca Română de Comerț Exterior), shortly called Bancorex, is a historic monument on Victory Avenue in the old town of Bucharest.
The building was designed by the architect Radu Descu and its construction took place between 1937 and 1938. The building has an eclectic style with Art Deco motifs on its facade and a Renaissance portico with semicircular arches.
The building initially hosted the Romanian National Bank Clerks’ Pension Fund. The building was designed with a two-level basement for storage, archives, radiator boilers, etc., and also contained a shelter. The ground floor was intended for shops and other commercial activities. The first five floors contained offices, the sixth floor had conference and meeting rooms, on the 7th floor there was a gym with dressing rooms and showers, and a cafeteria was located on the eighth 8th floor.
Later the building became the headquarters of the Romanian Foreign Trade Bank (Bancorex), which was established in 1968. In the 1990s Bancorex became the largest bank in Romania, but in 1999 the bank got in trouble due to non-performing loans. Depositors lined up at the bank to withdraw their savings and to prevent further bank runs the Romanian government had to bail out the bank after which it was sold to Banca Comercială Română (BCR).
