Chinabank Logo

Chinabank was founded on August 16, 1920, on Calle Rosario in Binondo, Manila, the world’s oldest Chinatown. Its founders included Dee C. Chuan, Albino Sycip, and other leading business figures. The bank was created as a local private commercial bank for Chinese-Filipino merchants who often struggled to obtain credit from existing institutions.

From the start, Chinabank combined Chinese business values, including the principle of trust known as “xinyong,” with Western banking practice. Its first managers were American bankers J. W. McFerran and Eugene Wing. The bank moved into its own building in 1924, was listed on the Manila Stock Exchange in 1927, and opened branches in Xiamen in 1925 and Shanghai in 1929.

World War II nearly stopped the business. In 1942, Japanese military authorities liquidated the bank in occupied Manila. Still, management had already moved more than 14 million pesos abroad in 1941. This preserved almost half of its assets and allowed Chinabank to reopen on July 23, 1945. In 1949, it granted a 1-million-peso credit line to Henry Sy, who later built the SM Group. In 1956, it lent 500,000 pesos to John Gokongwei, the future founder of another major Philippine conglomerate.

Chinabank later became a banking technology pioneer. In 1969, it computerized operations and moved to online processing of deposit accounts. In 1988, it launched TellerPhone, the first telephone banking service in the Philippines. In 1990, it helped create BancNet with seven other banks. It received a universal banking license in 1991, competed in a market shaped by BDO Unibank and Banco de Oro, acquired Manila Bank in 2007, and relaunched it as China Bank Savings. By its 2020 centennial, assets reached 1 trillion pesos.