The Oriental Bank Corporation (Chinese: 東藩滙理銀行), or "OBC", was a British imperial bank founded in India in 1842 which grew to be prominent throughout the Far East. As an Exchange Bank, the OBC was primarily concerned with the finance of trade and exchanges of different currencies. It was the first bank in Hong Kong and the first bank to issue banknotes in Hong Kong in 1846.
The bank was established in 1842 in Bombay, India, as the Bank of Western India. The bank moved its headquarters from Bombay to London in 1845, and opened branches in several cities, among these Hong Kong in 1845.
From the 1870s, the bank's finances suffered greatly from bad loans to coffee plantations in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and to sugar plantations in Mauritius. On May 2, 1884, the bank suspended payment, and it was subsequently liquidated in a Chancery proceeding. The majority of its branches and staff were sold to a new corporation, and its business was reconstituted as the New Oriental Bank Corporation. With growing competition from rivals, such as the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation and Chartered Bank of India, Australia, and China, the bank failed to survive and once again failed in 1892.
Source: Wikipedia
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