Bank of Khartoum Misr too established a branch in Khartoum, followed the next year by Jordan's Arab Bank. Then in 1958 the State Bank of Ethiopia (later Commercial Bank of Ethiopia), established a branch in Khartoum. In 1969, National and Grindlays Bank acquired Ottoman Bank, only to lose it the next year to nationalization. In 1970 the Sudanese government nationalized all the banks in the Sudan, changed the names of several, and put them under the Bank of Sudan. Barclays Bank, which had an extensive network of 24 branches, became the State Bank of Foreign Trade, and then Bank of Khartoum in 1975.
Siege of Khartoum injustices caused by the Egyptian colonial administration: arbitrary imprisonments were cancelled, torture instruments were destroyed, and taxes were remitted. To enlist the support of the population, Gordon legalised slavery, despite the fact that he himself had abolished it a few years earlier. This decision was popular in Khartoum, but caused controversy in Britain. Gordon was determined to "smash up the Mahdi". He requested that a regiment of Turkish soldiers be sent to Khartoum as Egypt was still nominally a province of the Ottoman Empire. When this was refused, Gordon asked for a unit of Indian Muslim troops and later for