Yokohama Specie Bank

Yokohama Specie Bank (横浜正金銀行) was a Japanese bank, founded in Yokohama, Japan in 1880. In 1946, it was reorganized and rebranded as the Bank of Tokyo, later part of MUFG Bank.

The Yokohama Specie Bank played a significant role in Japanese overseas trade and colonial ventures, not least in Manchuria and elsewhere in China.

History
Following the signing of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce in 1859, Yokohama was opened as a port for foreign trade and quickly grew in importance. Through the New Currency Act of 1871, Japan adopted the gold standard along international lines, with 1 yen corresponding to 1.5g of pure gold. Silver coins were also issued for trade with Asian countries who favoured silver as a currency, thus establishing a de facto gold-silver standard. However, inflation caused by the 1877 Satsuma Rebellion and the outflow of a large amount of silver due to increased imports, a large discrepancy arose between government-issued banknotes and specie coin. This became a source of trouble for the merchants in Yokohama, as specie rather than banknotes came to be demanded for foreign trade.

On 28 February 1880, a syndicate of 22 people with the support of Fukuzawa Yukichi and Inoue Kaoru established a bank in accordance with the National Bank Act to ensure the availability of specie for the trading community. The bank had an initial capitalization of three million Yen, of which one million was invested by the Ministry of Finance. The bank was modeled after the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, which had a great influence on Japan's overseas trade and foreign exchange at the time. The new bank opened an agency in New York and a branch office in Kobe, both also in 1880. The next year, the bank opened a sub-branch in London, which was upgraded to a branch in December 1884 after the bank was appointed by the Ministry of Finance to manage Japan's foreign exchange.

In July 1887, the government promulgated the Yokohama Specie Bank Ordinance, which stipulated that branch offices be established everywhere that was regarded as important to Japanese foreign trade and authorized that an administrator from the Ministry of Finance would be assigned to monitor the bank's operations. This Ordinance was revised in 1889 to authorize the Japanese government to overrule any decision by its directors, and if deemed necessary, to replace the directors with others of its choosing.

A branch office was opened in Shanghai in 1893. This was the first of many offices which would eventually be established throughout China. In 1894 a branch was established in Bombay. With the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 to 1905, the Yokohama Specie Bank established branches in the Kwantung Leased Territory and served as paymaster for the Imperial Japanese Army. From 1906, under its 7th president, Takahashi Korekiyo the bank was permitted to issue its own banknotes for use in the Kwantung Leased Territory and in China. In July of the same year, Japan's first leased line telephone opened between the Bank of Japan and the Yokohama Specie Bank head office. In 1911, the bank signed an underwriting agreement with the Imperial Chinese Chunghwa Post for the establishment of a postal banking system in China. In the Taisho period, the Yokohama Specie Bank became one of the three major exchange banks in the world. New branches opened in 1909 in Dalian, 1910 in Beijing and Honolulu, 1912 in Harbin, and 1915 in Sydney.

On 4 October 1918, London branch sub-manager S. Ujie, his wife and three sons, together with bank employee Takashi Aoki and wife Sueko, died when German UBoat UB-91 sank the SS Hirano Maru (1908). More branches opened after World War I in Qingdao (1919), Hankou (1921), Vladivostok (1924), Mukden (later Changchun, 1925), and Tianjin (1926).

The bank continued in its role as the paymaster for the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War and Pacific War, assisted by its widespread branch office network. Its assets in New York and Honolulu were seized by the United States government in 1941. In 1946, following the surrender of Japan, the bank was officially merged with The Bank of Tokyo as part of anti-zaibatsu ordinances issued by the American occupation authorities. The bank was finally liquidated in 1963.

Presidents

 * December 1879 – July 1882: Nakamura Michita
 * July 1882 – January 1883: Ōno Mitsukage
 * January – March 1883: Shirasu Taizō
 * March 1883 – March 1890: Hara Rokurō
 * March 1890 – April 1897: Sonoda Kokichi
 * March 1897 – March 1906: Sōma Nagatane
 * March 1906 – June 1911: Takahashi Korekiyo
 * March 1911 – February 1913: Mishima Yatarō
 * February - September 1913: Mizumachi Kesaroku
 * September 1913 – March 1919: Junnosuke Inoue
 * March 1919 – March 1922: Kajihara Nakaji
 * March 1922 – September 1936: Kodama Kenji
 * September 1936 – March 1943: Toshikata Ōkubo
 * March 1943 – June 1945: Hideshige Kashiwagi
 * June 1945 – July 1946: Shōji Arakawa
 * June – December 1946: Itsuki Takada