Yokohama Specie Bank

Yokohama Specie Bank (横浜正金銀行, Yokohama Shōkin Ginkō) was a Japanese bank founded in Yokohama, Japan in the year 1880. Its assets were transferred to The Bank of Tokyo (now The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ) in 1946. The bank played a significant role in Japanese trade with China.^[1] The original bank building is now the Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Cultural History. During the Second World War the bank controversially acted as the paymaster for the Imperial Japanese Army as it conquered parts of Asia.

History

1879 – The National Bank Act establishes the Yokohama Specie Bank
28 February 1880 – Bank officially opens
1882 – YSB begins foreign exchange business
March 1883 – Rokuro Hara is brought in as president
1887 – Yokohama Specie Bank Ordinance, and revision in 1889, establishes the YSB as an exchange bank, subject to stricter control than ordinary banks, but also eligible for support from the government and the Bank of Japan
1946 – The Bank of Tokyo is designated to take over the business.
1963 – Liquidation

1880 – YSB establishes an agency in New York
1881 – YSB establishes its London sub-branch
1884 – The London sub-branch is upgraded to a full branch
1893 – YSB opens its Shanghai branch
1910 – Honolulu, Hawaii branch opens in a building that the architect Harry Livingston Kerr designed.

4 October 1918 – London branch sub-manager S. Ujie, his wife and three sons, together with bank employee Takashi Aoki and wife Sueko, die when German UBoat UB-91 sinks the Hirano Maru.^[2]^[3]

First (December 1879 – July 1882) Michita Nakamura
Second (July 1882 – January 1883) Eisuke Ono (father of Yoko Ono)
Third (1883 January – March 1883) Hakushu
Fourth (March 1883 – March 1890) Hara Rokurou
Fifth (1890 March – April 1897) Yoshi Takashi Sonoda
Sixth (March 1897 – March 1906) Yin Aiba Hisashi
Seventh (March 1906 – June 1911) Korekiyo Takahashi
8th (March 1911 – February 1913) Yatarō Mishima
9th (1913 February to September 1913) Mizumachi
10th (September 1913 – March 1919) Junnosuke Inoue^[4]
11th (March 1919 – March 1922) Kazihara Nakazi
12th (March 1922 – September 1936) Kodama Kenzi
13th (September 1936 – March 1943) Hori Ken Oohisa
14th (March 1943 – June 1945) Hideshige Kashiwagi
15th (1945 June–July 1946) Arakawa Shiyouzi
16th (1946-June–December 1946), Hee-Ichi Takada

^ The Yokohama Specie Bank Building – built in 1924 (No. 24, The Bund) Archived 12 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine
^ "The Torpedoed "Hirano Maru"". The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser. 13 December 1918. Retrieved 4 January 2012.
^ "独政府を相手に損害賠償の訴え". Osaka Asahi Shinbun. 10 July 1919. Retrieved 4 January 2012.
^ Tamaki, Norio. (1995). Japanese banking: a History, 1859-1959, p. 120, p. 120, at Google Books