Back Yokohama Specie Bank German Yokohama Specie Bank ID Yokohama Specie Bank Italian 横浜正金銀行 Japanese Yokohama Specie Bank Russian Yokohama Specie Bank Ukrainian 横滨正金银行 Chinese
The Yokohama Specie Bank (横浜正金銀行, Yokohama Shōkin Ginkō, YSB) was a Japanese bank founded in Yokohama in 1880, which dominated the Japanese market for trade finance in subsequent decades. It has been described as a "quasi-governmental exchange bank that was the overseas financial agent of the Japanese government".[2]: 3
During the 1920s, the YSB accounted for nearly 50 per cent of foreign exchange transactions for Japanese exports and imports, and in 1929 was Japan's largest and most profitable bank aside from the Bank of Japan.[3] It also played a significant role in Japanese colonial ventures, not least in Manchuria and elsewhere in China.[4]
In 1946, following the loss of Japan's overseas possessions, the Yokohama Specie Bank was reorganized and rebranded as the Bank of Tokyo, one of the predecessor entities of MUFG Bank.
- ^ "Yokohama Specie Bank, Yokohama, c. 1920". Old Tokyo. 25 January 2018.
- ^ Mark Metzler (2006). Lever of Empire: The International Gold Standard and the Crisis of Liberalism in Prewar Japan. University of California Press.
- ^ Hiroaki Yamazaki (2010). "The Yokohama Specie Bank during the period of the restored gold standard in Japan (January 1930–December 1931)". In Youssef Cassis (ed.). Finance and Financiers in European History 1880–1960. Cambridge University Press.
- ^ The Yokohama Specie Bank Building – built in 1924 (No. 24, The Bund) Archived 12 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine