The article deals with the basic activity and functions of the Samarkand branch of the Azov-Don Commercial Bank. In Soviet historiography banks were seen as an instrument of “colonialism”, both Western and Russian. Unfortunately, historians paid little attention to the quantitative data concerning banks, focusing on the general characteristics of industrial and financial relations in Central Asia. Basing on the archival sources, the author argues that the financial institutions of the Russian Empire took into account local specifics and encouraged the production of export-oriented products. The author uses interbank correspondence, annual reports of the branch director, as well as audit materials of the Samarkand branch. The article researches both active and passive operations of the bank, its expenses and profits, as well as correspondence related to the bank's staff. Unlike most Soviet and post-Soviet researchers, the author believes that banks have not become “monopolies” in Central Asian economy. Though Azov-Don Bank possessed four branches in the Central Asian region and strived to control all the export of cotton and fruits, in the end it failed to become the monopolist in the economic life of Turkestan. The main reason for this “failure”, according to the author, was the bank’s adaptation to real economic relations in Turkestan and khanates. The “modernization” of Central Asian economy in the banks’ management point of view meant to finance the cultivation of export-oriented crops and to mediate between the metropolis and the periphery. Thus, the “colonial” economy had a specific character, aimed not at the destruction of the local industry, but in the development of agriculture. As a result, the economic “modernization” of Central Asia was dragged out and assumed peculiar forms of agrarian “colonialism”. At first glance, the “colonial” periphery seemed an attractive area for investments and future super-profits, but speculative nature of Turkestan economy prevented the standard development of the local banks. World War I hindered the development of banking operations of the Samarkand Branch, which were limited to a role of an intermediary in the cotton sales at the Moscow Exchange. Finally, at the end of 1917 all the branches of the Azov-Don bank were nationalized by the Soviet State.