NEW
CHARTERED
BANK
BUILDING
Architects:
Messrs. Palmer & Turner
MEGA J
JIMA LJ
CELLE
KINK LI
Pins t
HIRA 27
".
There have been vast changes in the Central District of Hong Kong since the end of the war; the number of large, new buildings erected dur- ing the post-war period in this area includes Electra House, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce Building. Fu House, the Mercantile Bank Building, Edinburgh House, Jardine House. Great China House and Caxton House; under construction is the second section of Alexandra House, while the Hong Kong Hotel site awaits development.
The latest addition to this formid- able list, and one of the more notable because of its location, size and im- portance, will be the new Chartered Bank Building. Plans have been prepared for an impressive, modern structure on the site adjoining the Hongkong Bank.
COO
TO U DI
THE CHARTERED BANK OF INDIA. AUSTRALIA AND CHINA.
PROPOSED NEW BUILDING HONGKONG
PALKER & TUP NE? AJSETAS
7
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possessions East of the Cape of Good Hope and the Eastern Archipelago."
In December 1853, The Chartered
The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China was founded over a century ago to finance the Eastern Trade, and in discharging that constructive task it has encoun- Following the abolition of its trading tered difficulties that have daunted monopoly, the Company sought to less determined institutions. The keep the remittance and exchange Bank has never been stronger than business in the hands of its so-called it is to-day and, as the standard- "Agency Houses." This arrangement Bank of India, Australia and China bearer of the British financial tradi- was by no means satisfactory to the was incorporated under Royal Char-
who tion in the East, it is efficiently merchants
had entered the ter.
Of the few British staffed and fully equipped to sustain Eastern trade, and in the late 'forties banks which were granted Royal the work to which its founders set there arose a demand for modern Charters in the early days of joint their hands.
banking facilities similar to those stock banking only the Chartered already available to traders with Bank remains in existence as origi- North America and the Levant.
eastern
nally incorporated. The increasing scale of international financial opera- tions has led to the amalgamation or reincorporation of many of the older
The East India Company's trading privileges in India were abolished in 1813. The end came in China twenty
In 1852 a group of East India mer- years later.
In 1858 the East India chants, shipowners and Members of Company ceased to exist Through Parliament met at South Sea House out its long career the Company had in the City of London to draw up a operated an efficient, if somewhat petition to the Crown for the grant "The Chartered Bank of India, cxpensive, mechanism for remit of a Royal Charter "to establish a Australia and China has preserved, tances, the exchange of currencies and bank in London for the purpose of throughout a century of progressive movements of specie between Europe, carrying on banking business in India activity under violently changing India, the East Indies and China. and Australia and the other British political and economic conditions
overseas banks.
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