The empire was catastrophically incompetent at managing its economy. It was not until 1845 that the first bank was opened in Constantinople; the first banknotes were not numbered and they were thus extremely easy to forge. There was no state budget until the 1840s; the Ministry of Finance was only set up in 1839. Although things had improved a little by the mid-1850s, the finances of the empire were utterly unable to cope with the huge costs of the Crimean War.
