Painful Transitions: The Impact of Economic Growth and Government Policies on Hong Kong’s ‘Chinese’ Banks, 1945-70

Hong Kong’s Chinese banks survived the loss in 1949 of their traditional role in serving the trade and currency needs of Mainland clients and the restrictions imposed on the local gold market. But they allowed foreign banks to overtake them in financing the new manufacturing sector in Hong Kong. Using unpublished archival material, this paper traces how official banking policies encouraged them to cling to their traditional business model until forced to change by a collapse in the property market.

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