FROM ITS FIRST DAYS in Hong Kong in a small rented building on a back street, the Bank of China's signature skyscraper on the city skyline reflects its 90-year rise to eminence in the financial world.
Now China's leading international bank with a presence in 23 countries and each major continent, BoC's ancestry belongs to the age of dynasties.
With the longest history of all Chinese banks, its forerunner was the Dai Qing (Great Qing) Bank, established in 1905 by the last imperial dynasty. After the overthrow of the Qing dynasty in 1911, the republican government renamed it the Bank of China in 1912, and designated it the central bank, with headquarters in Shanghai.
The first Hong Kong office was opened in 1917 on 47 Bonham Strand East, with eight staff.
Always expanding despite the backdrop of years of wars, political instability and domestic turmoil, BoC was revamped as an international exchange bank after the communist takeover in 1949. It has since been China's largest foreign exchange bank, a distinction on which it continues to capitalise.
After wholesale financial reform in China in 1994, BoC became a state-owned commercial bank, one of four giants designated as the backbone of the country's banking sector. It has aspired to become internationally competitive, in Hong Kong and beyond.