Although there have been ample studies focusing on Hong Kong as an international financial centers, these works have tended to concentrate on major companies and corporations; what have escaped scholarly attention are the smaller firms that were able to transfer significant sums of money across jurisdictions, from North America to Hong Kong, then from Hong Kong to Taishan, and even sending funds from China back to the United States. The archive of Hong Kong’s Wah Ying Cheong remittance firm, which included Geban gongjin bu 各伴工金部 (Account book of remuneration for partners), Geke fuji bu 各客附寄部 (Account book of remittance orders), and Neibu gehao laiwang bu 內埠各號來 往部 (Account book of intrabank transfers among correspondent firms), contain information regarding how the financial resources of overseas Chinese circulated across continents. As networks among overseas Chinese expanded, so did their financial resources, which made it easier for them to transfer funds overseas. Operationalizing surname, clan, and county ties, Wah Ying Cheong obtained the support of Liucun county in Taishan, thereby allowing it to secure the patronage of overseas Taishanese, dominate the local remittance market, and lay a foundation for joint ventures in the future. Based on a high level of trust created by kinship and native-place ties as well as business connections, overseas Taishanese expanded their commercial networks in such a way that allowed them to pool together their financial resources, create join ventures, accumulate savings, and secure loans. The commercial networks of overseas Chinese merchants were supplemented by a vast system of interconnected associated firms, one that allowed funds to be remitted from North America to Hong Kong, then to Taishan (via Guangzhou) through intracompany lending and borrowing. The financial wizardry of overseas Taishanese is further revealed in how they used remittance, commodity trading, currency exchange, and investment (mostly stocks and real estate) to create a system that encompassed payment, disbursement, and transfer payment to ensure that they would always have ample liquid asset.
This paper focuses on Wah Ying Cheong, the oldest and one of the most successful remittance firms in British Hong Kong. Wah Ying Cheong utilized kinship and native-place ties, as well as migration, commerce, and movement of people to circulate large sums of money across the Pacific, and in the process creating a web of financial exchange made up of people, money, and material goods. This paper delineates the emergence of a transnational web of financial exchange, one that included a highly complex system of payment, disbursement, and transfer payment that enabled the remittance of funds across China, the United States and British Hong Kong in a manner that satisfied the demands among clients for stocks, bonds, profits accrued through interest, foreign exchange, and currency conversion.
LEE Pui Tak is interested in the histories of savings, foreign currency, and insurance. He has been teaching the banking history of modern China, business history of Hong Kong, history of overseas Chinese merchant and Chinese chambers of commerce in overseas. He holds honorary and adjunct professorships at University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and Ritsumeikan University. Currently, he is distinguished professor at Research Institute of Global Chinese and Area Studies, Huaqiao University (Xiamen campus). He has published extensively on the history of Chinese business networks and bankers in modern China. His most recent work (co-authored with Kent Wan), 'Networks of Power and Wealth in the Cantonese Pacific: The Kwoks and the Yips, 1864-1949', will be published by Springer later this year. He is preparing another manuscript on K. P. Chen and Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank, 1915-65.
