Incorporated in 1872, Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas – Paribas – inherited the European and international traditions of several well-established banking houses (Bischoffsheim & Goldschmidt and Goüin, among others). It then became a sort of model for French-style merchant banking and, as a result, swiftly aroused historians' subsequent curiosity. The bank's unusual character intrigued them. It was a hybrid, combining continental European private banking, then in decline, major retail or commercial banking, which was growing strongly, and British merchant and American investment banking that was already setting a trend.