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| Banknotes of the Hong Kong dollar |
10 dollars banknote of 1929, issued by the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China.
Obverse: Bridge, pagoda, arms, junk between rock formations.
Reverse: Bank building.
Printed by Waterlow and Sons Limited, London England.
The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China (informally The Chartered Bank) was a bank incorporated in London in 1853 by Scotsman James Wilson, under 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 Hong Kong & 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; a privilege it continues to exercise (as Standard Chartered) to this day. Over the following decades, it printed bank notes in China and Malaya. With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869; and completion of Indo-European telegraph line from London to Calcutta, and its extension to China in 1871; placed most British banks (including Chartered Bank) to expand and develop its business.
The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China was influential in the development of British colonial trade throughout east of suez.
In 1969 Chartered Bank merged with Standard Bank, which did business throughout Africa. The merged enterprise was incorporated in London under the name Standard Chartered.