Bank of China中国银行

Bank of China (BOC) is one of four major Chinese state-owned banks. Headquartered in Xicheng District, Beijing, BOC was founded in 1912 when Sun Yat-Sen 孙中山 sanctioned the Da Qing Bank of the recently toppled Qing Dynasty. The bank split into two factions in 1949: One accompanied the fleeing KMT to Taiwan and one remained on the mainland. The Taiwanese faction became known as the Mega International Commercial Bank while the mainland faction became known as the Bank of China.  

Since 1991, BOC has been a fully state-owned enterprise (SOE), operating as one of the Big Four Chinese banks (四大) alongside Agricultural Bank of China, China Construction Bank, and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.

BOC is the first Chinese commercial bank to achieve a dual listing in both the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Based in Beijing, BOC operates in six sectors: Corporate Banking, Personal Banking, Treasury Operations, Investment Banking, Insurance, and Other Operations.

BOC is growing its international businesses in various ways, including offering Chinese investors the opportunity to buy its offshore shares, and spearheading the effort to internationalize the RMB, engaging extensively as an overseas RMB clearinghouse and issuer of overseas yuan-denominated bonds. 

BOC overall has an overseas service network covering 559 institutions across 61 countries and regions as of December 2020, the most of the Big Four Chinese banks. It is generally regarded as the most active bank overseas of the Big Four. A 2018 ChinaDaily article claimed that overseas ventures accounted for 30% of BOC’s total revenue as well as assets, while BOC’s 2020 Annual Report stated that overseas operations accounted for 18.83% of total profits. Overseas commercial deposits totaled $485.1 billion and loans totaled $407.8 billion, up 6.80% and 4.58% respectively from 2019.