Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China x Chartered Bank

The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China, known from 1956 as Chartered Bank, was established by Royal Charter in 1853. It was an overseas exchange bank, based in and controlled from the Copyright to this collection rests with the City of London.. It was established to take advantage of the end of the East India Company's monopoly in 1853.

The bank operated in India and throughout the Far East-in China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Siam [Thailand], Burma [Myanmar], Singapore, Malacca, Penang and the Malay States, the Philippines, Japan, Java, Sumatra, Ceylon [Sri Lanka], North Borneo, Brunei, Sarawak, Pakistan and East Pakistan. There were also branches in New York and Hamburg. Despite its name, the bank never operated in Australia.

Further UK branches opened in Manchester (1937) and Liverpool (1948). The bank gained a second London office and additional branches in India, Pakistan, China and Ceylon with the takeover in 1938 of the P and O Banking Corporation.

The bank's activities in the Far East were severely disrupted by World War Two and nationalist post-war governments in the region. The takeover in 1957 of rival Eastern Bank presented new opportunities. Eastern Bank was active in Chartered Bank's traditional areas of operation, but also had branches in the Middle East-in Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen, Lebanon, Qatar, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Oman. In the same year, Chartered Bank purchased the Ionian Bank's interests in Cyprus.

The bank operated from various addresses in its earliest years, and was afterwards for many years based in Hatton Court, Threadneedle Street. It moved just before the First World War to Bishopsgate, where it remained until 1969, when it merged with Standard Bank to form what is now Standard Chartered Bank.