page_title: Paper money of the Qing dynasty
section_title: The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation
hierarchical_section_title: Paper money of the Qing dynasty / Banknotes produced by British banks / The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation
caption_attribution_description: English: A banknote issued by the Hong Kong &amp; Shanghai Banking Corporation for circulation in China while it was still under the rule of the Manchu Qing Dynasty denominated in "Mexican Dollars" (Mexican Pesos).
context_page_description: The paper money of the Qing dynasty was periodically used alongside a bimetallic coinage system of copper-alloy cash coins and silver sycees; paper money was used during different periods of Chinese history under the Manchu-led Qing as the Qing had learned from the previous experiences of the Song, Jurchen Jin, Mongol Yuan, and Ming dynasties with paper money where uncontrolled printing lead to hyperinflation. During the youngest days of the Qing dynasty paper money was used but this was quickly abolished as the government sought not to repeat history for a fourth time, however under the reign of the Xianfeng Emperor due to several large wars and rebellions the Qing government was forced to issue paper money again.
  The reason why the government was forced to reform the imperial monetary system with a very complex system during the Taiping Rebellion was because the rebels had blocked the access of mint metals from the southwest of China, but more money was still needed to fight the ongoing insurgency.
context_section_description: The banknotes produced by the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) had seen extensive circulation in the territory of the Qing dynasty from the 1870s and later. In the year 1864 the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation was established by the Scottish Thomas Sutherland to finance Far East trade and would later grow to become both the largest and most influential of all the foreign banks during the Qing dynasty era. The Traditional Chinese characters for the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation were "匯豐銀行" (Huifeng Yinhang, which the British pronounced as "Wayfung"). These Chinese characters could be translated as "abundant remittances".
  Over the following years the HSBC became a banking leader in East and Southeast Asia. This happened because the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation was a key player in many major events in the region, such as acting as banker for the Hong Kong government from 1880 onwards, establishing the first bank in the Kingdom of Siam in the year 1888 where it printed the first banknotes of the Siamese tical, and overseeing the management of British colonial government accounts in Qing China, Japan, Singapore, and other areas of influence. In an advertisement in the North-China Herald of 17 February 1876 the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation reported to have a paid up capital of five million dollars and a reserved fund of one hundred thousand dollars while at the time it operated branches in eight different countries, while in China it had branches in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Hankou, Fuzhou, Yantai, and Xiamen.
  The quantity of banknotes of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation made the amounts produced by other foreign banking corporations in China at the time look minuscule when compared. The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation produced the banknotes of the Hong Kong dollar during its colonial era.
  The Shanghai branch of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation was established only briefly after the bank opened its headquarters in the British colony of Hong Kong. The General Manager of the Shanghai branch was a Scotsman named David MacLean who fulfilled his role between the years 1865 and 1873 and managed to convince the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs to deposit all its incoming revenue with the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation which proved to be a very profitable endeavour for the British bank. HSBC soon established new branches wherever the Imperial Maritime Customs had one of its local offices. Afterwards the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation would find itself branching out beyond customs as it would expand in the businesses of money deposits and lending money to the Chinese government, collect war indemnities on behalf of the British government, finance the construction of railways, and lending money to the military of the Qing dynasty which was fighting an expensive campaign against warlords in the north of China. The many branches of the bank issued their own banknotes which due to the position and positive reputation of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation were in great demand across China.
  During the 19th century until the break out of World War I the United Kingdom closely cooperated with the German Empire in China to balance out the expansionist influences of the French and Russian spheres of interest in China, s the result the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation worked closely and very successfully with the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank. By the turn of the 20th century HSBC had become the most important foreign banking company in imperial China leading to a great variety of banknotes being issued by the bank during this era. As the shareholders of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation had only very limited liability for the banknotes emissed by the company, HSBC was required to hold ⅓ specie reserve in their vaults at any given time. Thus resulted in the fact these banknotes were always secured to be paid out to the bearer and never faced being defaulted.
  The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corpora
caption: A banknote of 5 Mexican dollars issued by the Shanghai branch of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation during the 1890s.
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