The company resolved to change its name to the "Bank of Shanghai" in 1998, and regulatory registration of the new name was completed in 2000.

[citation needed] Prior to 1949, Shanghai was the main branch of HSBC, but its operations in mainland China had significantly scaled down in the 1950s.

On 11 December 2013, HSBC Hong Kong sold their 8.0% stake of the Bank of Shanghai to Spanish multinational banking group Banco Santander for an undisclosed fee (Santander announced that including the cooperation agreement, the total investment would be €470 million), which HSBC HK listed the stake as an available-for-sale asset with a fair value of HK$3.629 billion (approx.

[3][4] It was HSBC's successive disinvestment in the mainland China after selling Ping An Insurance in December 2012.

[5] According to the bank, 206 Chinese state-owned enterprises owned 56% stake of the share capital in total, as at 31 July 2015.