Banque de l'Indochine
After World War II, it lost its issuance privilege but reinvented itself as an investment bank in France, and developed new ventures in other countries, such as Saudi Arabia and South Africa.
Meanwhile, the rival Crédit Industriel et Commercial (CIC) had become the Paris correspondent of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, and had powerful political backers in the conservative Catholic administration under France's President Patrice de MacMahon.
In the early 1870s, both banks developed competing projects to create an institution that would receive the privilege of issuing money in French Indochina.
[7] Following the Treaty of Tientsin (1885) that concluded the Sino-French War, France consolidated its colonial rule northwards over Annam and Tonkin.
Competitors of the CEP, and especially the Société Générale, feared the Banque de l'Indochine would monopolize credit and banking activity in the expanded territory.
That evolution was completed in 1896 as the Crédit Lyonnais, which had expanded into Egypt and India, entered the Bank de l'Indochine's capital and board.
[28] Throughout the 1920s, the French Parliament extended the Banque de l'Indochine's issuance privilege only for short periods of time, from 1920 to 1925 on an annual basis, and then every semester, in contrast to earlier long-term extensions.
[32] During World War II, the Banque de l'Indochine was chaired by Paul Baudoin, who in the summer of 1940 was the first Foreign Minister of Vichy France.
[34] The Banque de l'Indochine, like the BPPB, was subsequently able to escape nationalization following the liberation of France, even though Baudoin was sentenced to Indignité nationale.
Under Japanese occupation, the bank's offices in Hong Kong and Singapore ceased activity in early 1942, and those in China were reduced to near-complete paralysis.
[33] In Pondicherry, the news of the armistice of 22 June 1940 were met with panic and triggered a bank run on the Banque de l'Indochine.
[38] The future of the Banque de l'Indochine was vividly debated in the new political context created by the liberation of France.
In 1947, following protracted negotiations, the Banque de l'Indochine approved the decision to buy back the French government's 20 percent equity stake, despite a steep price imposed by Finance Minister Maurice Schumann.
[3]: 456–458 The bank's activities in mainland China were partly revived after the defeat of Japan in 1945 (as were the offices in Hong Kong and Singapore), kept for a while after the Communist victory of the Chinese Civil War in 1949,[40] but eventually liquidated in the 1950s.
De Flers subsequently invited La Paternelle, an insurer, to acquire a further 4 percent of the bank's capital, thus consolidating a group of friendly shareholders.
[41] The Banque de l'Indochine used or commissioned a number of prominent buildings, some of which are notable exemplars of French colonial architecture.
[47] In July 1902, it moved to a new headquarter building nearby on 15 bis, rue Laffitte, designed by Henri Paul Nénot and whose exterior still survives.
[48] In March 1922, the bank moved to a new and larger building started in 1913 but whose construction was interrupted by World War I,[49] on 96 boulevard Haussmann, designed by architect René Patouillard-Demoriane.
Its latest reconstruction on the same site, by the Société d'Exploitation des Établissements Brossard et Mopin using granite from Biên Hòa, was completed in late 1930 and inaugurated in 1931.
[51] It was designed in ostentatious neoclassical style by architect Félix Dumail [fr], with some exterior details inspired by Cham and Khmer architecture, and a large art deco atrium.
[52] The bank's Hanoi office was opened in 1887, and in 1901 moved to a larger building on boulevard Amiral-Courbet facing the Square Paul-Bert, now Vườn hoa Chí Linh [vi] on the eastern side of Hoàn Kiếm Lake.
The Nam Định office was established in 1926 in a provisional location, and moved to a permanent building inaugurated on 13 May 1929, designed by Félix Dumail [fr], that is still in use by the State Bank of Vietnam.
[21] It was constructed by the engineering firm Howarth Erskine, and formed an imposing neoclassical edifice on the bank of the Chao Phraya River.
It stands next to the East Asiatic Building at the end of Soi Charoen Krung 40, and now houses offices of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bangkok.
[66] The bank's main branch in French Polynesia has been located on the same site, just south of Papeete's Notre Dame Cathedral, since its establishment in 1904.
In 1954, the bank relocated to a new international style office, which it had built on the site of the former Hotel de France nearby on 10, Place Lagarde.
Interim (July 1931-July 1932) In addition to its issuance privilege in French colonies, the Banque de l’Indochine, like other foreign banks in China at the time, issued paper currency in the concessions where it had established branch offices.
