Mercantile Bank of India, London and China
The Mercantile Bank of India, London and China was an Anglo-Indian bank with business focus in the Far East.
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[edit] History
The Mercantile Bank of India started life as the Mercantile Bank of Bombay, taking the name of the city, Bombay (now Mumbai), where it was founded in October 1853. In November 1854, it opened an office in Shanghai and by 1857, the bank was granted a royal charter. In 1857, it established a presence in Hong Kong and later, changed its name to the Mercantile Bank of India, London, and China. It moved its headquarters to London in 1858[1][2][3] and it competed with the two other great British banks (the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank and Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China) involved in trade between India and China and other British possessions in Asia. By 1860 its total assets reached the amount of 21.7 million USD, a medium-sized bank by the standards of that time. (For comparison, one of the leading Anglo-Indian banks, the Oriental Bank Corporation was about three times larger in terms of total assets.)
The bank had branches across India, the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States, in Hong Kong and in Shanghai. It issued banknotes in Penang, Singapore and Hong Kong. It became the issuer of Hong Kong banknotes from 1859 to 1892, and from 1912 to 1974.[4]. Trouble in 1893 meant it lost its charter, and was reconstituted as the Mercantile Bank of India, Ltd.
During the Second World War, the Mercantile Bank had to close down several offices in the Far East, but it managed to re-open its offices after the war. The Hong Kong office re-opened in February 1946 and the Shanghai office in 1945, but was closed down its Shanghai operations in 1952 due to the Communist party rule.[5]. In 1952, total assets of the bank totaled 205.5 million USD.
[edit] Operations
[edit] Demise
The Mercantile Bank of India, Ltd was acquired in 1959 by The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. By then its name had been shortened again, to "Mercantile Bank, Ltd"[6][7]. The acquired office in Bombay now houses the HSBC Group's Head Office in India. The entity - Mercantile Bank, Ltd was subsequently sold to Citibank in 1984 [8]and to the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Ltd. in 1987.
[edit] See also
- Banknotes of the Hong Kong dollar
- The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation
- Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China
[edit] References
- ^ The Business History Review, Vol. 72, No. 1
- ^ Mercantile Bank of India, 1857-
- ^ CEYLON Banknotes, Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London & China 1867-80
- ^ World Paper Money Catalog and History - Hongkong Dollar
- ^ 255, Chapter | A History of Modern Shanghai Banking. The Rise and Decline of China Finance Capitalism Armonk, New York, London, M. E. Sharpe, 2003, 325 p
- ^ HSBC - 150 years in India
- ^ Flickr -Mercantile Bank of India - Bombay - 1942
- ^ Citibank completes acquisition of Mercantile Bank Ltd. from Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corp.
