The late 1930s to 1940s were tough on the bank, as the Second Sino-Japanese War and later Japanese occupation of Hong Kong resulted in heavy losses, with many of BEA's assets seized.

BEA had to issue a statement to counter "malicious rumours" about its stability, as queues of customers seeking to withdraw funds formed outside some of its Hong Kong branches.

It condemned the rumour mongers, declaring that it had sufficient funds to meet customers' requests, and noting that its capital adequacy ratio was above the industry average, at 14.6 percent.

Earlier in the week, the bank had been forced to restate its previous half-year's earnings downwards by nearly 12 percent after it was revealed that one of its staff had conducted unauthorised trades and then buried the losses.

It was expected that 40% of savings coming from business alignment, 25% from restructuring middle to back offices, and remaining via branch automation and streamlining.

[17] In late 2018, BEA began to venture into investment banking by setting up a debt capital markets team based in Hong Kong.

BEA faced a difficult 2019, with loan writedowns in China and unprecedented scale of protests in Hong Kong affecting business.

The company claimed that the launch of debit cards would help attract retail banking customers by giving them greater convenience in accessing their deposits.

[30][31] Hedge fund activist investor Elliott Management filed a lawsuit against BEA in July 2016 in Hong Kong court over a share placement transaction.

[32] Elliott Management, which held 7% of listed shares of BEA, had included majority of the bank's directors, its CEO and chairman in the lawsuit.

The transaction in question was on BEA's issuance of new shares to Japan's Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp (SMBC) in 2015.

[34] During the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests, several BEA outlets were accidentally targeted as protestors vandalized mainland-linked business.