Asia, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, San Francisco
The Oriental Bank Corporation (
Chinese: 東藩滙理銀行), or "OBC", was a British imperial
bank founded in
India in 1842 which grew to be prominent throughout the
Far East. As an Exchange bank, the OBC was primarily concerned with the finance of trade and exchanges of different currencies.[1] It was the first bank in
Hong Kong and the first bank to issue
banknotes in Hong Kong.[2][3]
History
The bank was established in 1842 in
Bombay, India, as the Bank of Western India. The bank moved its
headquarters from
Bombay to
London in 1845, and opened branches in
Colombo (1843),
Calcutta (1844),
Shanghai (1845),
Canton (1845),
Singapore (1846), and
Hong Kong (1846).[4] The bank acquired the failing
Bank of Ceylon in 1850, and obtained a royal charter for the merged institution under the name Oriental Bank Corporation in 1851.[5] It was chartered in 1851 to allow competition with the
East India Company's
opium billing
monopoly, which was unpopular in
England at the time.[6]
By the 1860s, the bank held a dominant position in India and China and was considered the “most powerful, oldest, and most prestigious Eastern exchange bank,” and “the doyen of Eastern exchange banking.”[7]
^"Oriental Bank Corporation". Times of London. 3 May 1884. p. 11.
^"In the Matter of the Companies Acts, 1862 and 1867, and in the Matter of the Oriental Bank Corporation". London Gazette. No. 25350. 6 May 1884. p. 2045.