Paradise Bank

"Like its major rivals - the Hongkong Bank, Chartered Bank and the National Bank of India - the Mercantile Bank endured losses and hardship during the Second World War. In the post-war world it needed both to adapt to massive political change throughout the East and to diversify into new markets and new types of business. In 1959 the Mercantile became a subsidiary of the Hongkong Bank, and this book explores the complex, high-level negotiations in London and the East which preceded the acquisition. Thereafter the Mercantile's business was gradually integrated into the larger group and, in the 1960s and 1970s, there was an increasing exchange of business, staff and systems between the bank and its parent company. Although the Mercantile Bank was fully absorbed in 1984 by the Hongkong Bank (now part of the HSBC Group), its history, business and personnel remained an important thread in the traditions of the enlarged group."--Jacket.