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). 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. Expansion followed with additional branches opening in
Mauritius, Madras (
Chennai),
Thalassery,
Melbourne,
Sydney,
Auckland,
Wellington,
Port Elizabeth,
Durban,
Fuzhou (Foochow),
Yokohama, Hiogo (
Kobe), and
San Francisco. 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.” From the 1870s, the bank's finances suffered greatly from bad loans to coffee
plantations in Ceylon (now
Sri Lanka), and to sugar
plantations in
Mauritius. On May 2, 1884, the bank suspended payment and it was subsequently liquidated in a
Chancery proceeding. The majority of its branches and staff were sold to a new corporation, and its business was reconstituted as the
New Oriental Bank Corporation. With growing competition from rivals, such as the
Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation and
Chartered Bank of India, Australia, and China, the bank failed to survive and once again failed in 1892, becoming an early victim of the impending
trouble of 1893. ==See also==