Abstract
To provide an understanding of financial globalisation from a historical viewpoint, this volume sheds light on international banking in Asia before the Second World War. International banking facilitated the relationship between Asian economic development and international financial centres. In this introductory chapter, Sect. 1 provides a summary of the history of intra-Asian trade. Section 2 conducts a literature review on the history of international banking. Section 3 reviews the chapters in this volume. Section 4 presents a historical perspective on the development of international banking in Asia derived from this volume. From the 1870s onward, intra-Asian trade grew faster than the trade of other regions or global trade. This provided plenty of opportunities for international banks in Asia. Until 1913, such banks were from industrialised nations such as the UK, France, Germany, and Japan. Although trade within Asia and the wide variety of nationalities of international banks providing trade finance in Asia were highly important, such finance heavily depended on pound sterling bills of exchange on London and the financial markets there. After the First World War, indigenous banks, especially from China, also started entry into international banking in Asia. However, British banks like HSBC kept their leadership in Asian international finance. This historical context is still reflected in current Asian international finance such as syndicated loans.
Nisimura wrote Sect. 1 and Sugawara wrote Sects. 2–4. The work by Sugawara was financially supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research(C)16K03766, 16KK0049, and (C)19K01774.
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Notes
- 1.
Introduction: issues regarding Asian imperial banking; French overseas banking as an imperial system: A background for Asian developments. In Bonin et al. (2015).
- 2.
Concluding Remarks: Colonial Banking, Imperial Banking, Overseas Banking, Imperialist Banking: Convergences, Osmoses, and Differentiation, in Bonin and Valério (2016).
- 3.
pp. 1–13 Banks as Multinationals; pp. 30–61 Competitive Advantages in British Multinational Banking since 1890.
- 4.
The key developments in Japan’s monetary systems had been as follows: (a) After the opening of its ports in 1859 until 1871, Japan switched from a gold coin standard to bimetallism system. (b) From 1871 to 1874, the country opted for a short-lived gold standard. (c) From 1874 to 1897, it shifted to the silver standard. (d) From 1897 to 1917, Japan again adopted the gold standard (Yamamoto 1994, p. 11, pp. 63–65, 75, 80–81, 94, 114, p. 323; Kojima 1981, pp. 25–27, 264–265). Under such systems, actual circulated currencies were: From 1859 to 1871, the main currencies in circulation in Japan were gold and silver coins. From 1871 to 1884, mainly government-issued paper notes were used. After 1885, the bank notes issued by the Bank of Japan were circulated (The Bank of Japan, the first central bank in Asia, was established in 1882). The central bank’s notes were redeemed into silver from 1885 to 1897 and into gold from 1897 to 1917 (Yamamoto 1994, pp. 75, 88, 96–100, 113; Kojima 1981, p. 291). During 1871 to 1897, just for the settlement of the foreign trade, Japan minted its own silver dollar, which was an imitation of the Mexican dollar, and was called the “trade dollar”. In 1878, the trade dollars were permitted to circulate domestically also (Yamamoto 1994, pp. 87, 161–162, 179, 224.). After 1904, Japan kept more than half of its external reserves mainly in London (Kojima 1981, pp. 67–69, 360–362).
- 5.
United Overseas Bank, DBS, and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) have been three largest banks in Singapore. Although it does not appear in Table 1, in syndicated loans in Asia in 2018 Q1 OCBC ranked as 18th (Bloomberg 2018, p. 27). DBS is formerly the Development Bank of Singapore which is mentioned in Chap. 2 (Cassis).
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Sugawara, A., Nishimura, T. (2020). Introduction: The Development of International Banking in Asia. In: Nishimura, T., Sugawara, A. (eds) The Development of International Banking in Asia. Studies in Economic History. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55615-2_1
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