Early years: 1853 to 1900 The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China—a bank incorporated in
London, was founded in 1853 in London by
James Wilson; following the grant of a
Royal Charter from
Queen Victoria. In 1858, it opened its first branches in
Calcutta,
Bombay and
Shanghai. The bank's operations were expanded to
Hong Kong and
Singapore in 1859, followed by
Karachi in 1863. Chartered Bank was keen to capitalise on the huge expansion of trade between
India and
China and other
British possessions in Asia; and the handsome profits that could be made from financing the movement of goods from
Europe to
Far East. It competed with the other great British banks of that time—
Oriental Bank Corporation,
the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank and
Mercantile Bank of India, London and China. The Shanghai branch of Chartered Bank began operation in August 1858. Initially, the bank's business dealt specifically with large volume discounting and re-discounting of
opium and cotton bills. Although there was a gradual rise in opium cultivation in
China, the imports of opium still increased from 50,087
picul in 1863 to 82,61 picul by 1888. Transactions in the opium trade generated substantial profits for Chartered Bank. Later, the Chartered Bank also became one of the principal
foreign banknote-issuing institutions in Shanghai. In 1859, the bank opened a branch in
Hong Kong and an agency in
Singapore. In 1861, the Singapore agency was upgraded to a branch. In 1862, the bank was authorised to issue
bank notes in Hong Kong; from London to
Calcutta, and its extension to China in 1871; placed most British banks (including Chartered Bank) to expand and develop its business.
Expansion and transition to a merger: 1900 to 1969 The bank's expansion continued to the 1900s, leading it to open branches across Asia. The bank's traditional business was in cotton from
Bombay, indigo and tea from
Calcutta, rice from
Burma, sugar from
Java, tobacco from
Sumatra, hemp from
Manila and silk from
Yokohama. In the early 1900s, the bank opened offices in
New York and
Hamburg. When it established its New York branch in 1912, Chartered Bank became the first foreign bank to be issued a licence to operate in New York. In 1923 the
Great Kanto earthquake destroyed Chartered Bank's office in
Yokohama,
Japan, and killed a number of its staff. In 1927 the bank acquired
P&O Bank, which had offices in Colombo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, and
Guangzhou (Canton). P&O Bank also owned
Allahabad Bank. The operations of P&O Bank were merged with Chartered Bank. But Allahabad Bank continued to be run as a separate entity. The bank was greatly affected by the
Second World War. Their UK office had an established sports ground in East
Molesey in Surrey, which included an active rugby club. The site had once been a large country estate and the house known as the ‘Wilderness’. It was demolished when the park was developed into a high-class residential estate in 1876. The new ‘Wilderness’ was a red brick house, built in 1881 in Jacobean style. In 1929 the house, together with the land on the other side of the river Mole, was laid out as a sports ground, firstly for the
Distillers Company, and then for the construction group
Trollope & Colls. Later the estate became the sports ground of the Standard Chartered Bank. A disastrous fire gutted the house in 1983. The ground was sold for housing development and their sports club closed. In 1957, the bank acquired
Eastern Bank, giving Chartered a network of branches in
Aden,
Bahrain,
Lebanon,
Qatar and the
UAE. Chartered also bought the
Ionian Bank's Cyprus Branches. In 1964, the government of Indonesia nationalised Chartered Bank's branch as a part of
Konfrontasi. The branch was later merged into Bank Umum Negara, a state-owned bank. Bank Umum Negara then evolved into present-day
Bank Mandiri. In 1969, Chartered Bank merged with the South African bank
Standard Bank, forming
Standard Chartered. The same year, the
Government of India nationalised Allahabad Bank. ==See also==