Shanghai Old-Style Banks

The Chinese term ch'ien-chuang translates literally as "copper shop" denoting a place for the exchange of copper monies. In Shanghai, the term ch'ien-chuang referred to a number of financial institutions which performed different functions. Some were simply exchange shops as their name implied, while others, the subjects of this study, served as commercial banks. They accepted deposits, made loans to merchants, and issued commercial paper including promissory notes and bills of exchange.

The Shanghai hui-hua chi'ien-chuang are an example of a traditional institution which was strengthened by contact with modern outside influence rather than destroyed by it. When their position weakened seriously in the early 1930s, the cause could not be directly attributed to the "Western impact." The direct blow to the ch'ien-chuang power came from the Nationalist Government. Indirectly, the forces set in motion by the Western impact contributed to the weakening of the ch'ien-chuang. Shanghai Old-Style Banks focuses on these traditional institutions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from around 1800 to 1935, and attempts to understand the phenomenon of a traditional institution growing in strength in the midst of "modern" influence. [1]