Designed by the British architecture firm Palmer & Turner Architects and Surveyors, construction of the building lasted from 5 May 1921 to 23 June 1923.

The building exterior adopted a strict neo-classicist design, with a tripartite vertical and horizontal division.

The main trading hall has four columns hewn from whole blocks of marble, which was at the time unique in Asia.

The bank then purchased the Foreign Club, a three-storey building at number 12, the Bund, south of the Customs House, for 60,000 taels of silver.

During the Second World War, the HSBC building was occupied by the Japanese Yokohama Specie Bank.

[2] HSBC made contact with the Municipal Government on repurchasing the building, but negotiations failed due to price reasons.

The bank commissioned two bronze lions from the United Kingdom at the time of construction, to be placed outside the front doors flanking the entrance staircase.

They were cast by J W Singer & Sons in the English town of Frome, to a design by Henry Poole RA.

These lions were the inspiration for a second and much larger pair to a completely new design by Shanghai-based British sculptor W W Wagstaff that were commissioned for the bank's new Headquarters in Hong Kong, opened in 1935.

[4][page needed] During the wartime occupation of Shanghai, the lions were removed by the Japanese to be melted down for their valuable bronze, but they escaped this fate and were restored after the end of the war.

Near the ceiling of the octagonal entrance hall of the bank building were originally eight mosaic murals.

The dome was decorated with frescos depicting the twelve signs of the zodiac, eight geometric shapes and eight lions, as well Apollo, Luna and Fortuna.