Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation
Singapore's longest established local bank
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The OCBC Centre, located on the southern bank of the Singapore River houses the corporate headquarters of OCBC Bank.
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Native name
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华侨银行 |
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| Public company | |
| Traded as | SGX: O39 |
| Industry | Financial services |
| Founded | 1932 |
| Headquarters | OCBC Centre, Singapore |
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Area served
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South East Asia |
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Key people
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Ooi Sang Kuang, chairman Samuel Tsien, CEO Heng Sou Sun, Acting Chief Technology Officer & Head, Application Services |
| Products |
Consumer banking corporate banking investment banking global wealth management asset management insurance |
| S$4,815 million (FY2009) | |
| S$1,962 million (FY2009) | |
| Total assets | US$302.9 billion (2015) |
| Total equity | S$20 billion |
| Subsidiaries | Refer to Subsidiaries |
| Website | www.ocbc.com |
Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Limited (SGX: O39, OTC Pink: ) (Simplified Chinese: 华侨银行有限公司), abbreviated as OCBC Bank (华侨银行), is a publicly listed financial services organisation with its head office in Singapore. Although publicly listed, OCBC Bank's largest shareholder is the Lee Group of Companies. OCBC was founded by Lee Kong Chian in 1932, and his son Lee Seng Wee also served as chairman. OCBC Bank has assets of more than 224 billion SGD. Based on Bloomberg, in 2011 OCBC is the number one of the world's strongest $100 billion assets banks.
The "Oversea-Chinese" usage leads many to believe mistakenly that the bank's name is misspelled, but this is the correct traditional spelling. Although it is asserted that this is the correct spelling, "oversea" rather than "overseas", which is the correct use of the word in generic English, sounds uncomfortable and clumsy to native English speakers. The bank's global network has grown to comprise subsidiaries, branches, and representative offices in 18 countries and territories. It has retail banking subsidiaries in Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and China, and branches in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, the UK and US. OCBC's Indonesia subsidiary, Bank OCBC NISP, has 630 branches and offices.
In 1932, three banks – Chinese Commercial Bank (1912), Ho Hong Bank (1917), and Oversea-Chinese Bank (1919), merged to form Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation under the leadership of Lee Kong Chian. In the subsequent decades, the bank expanded its operations and became the largest bank in South East Asia.
In 1942 during World War II, all the local banks in Singapore closed briefly during the early days of the Japanese Occupation. By April 1942 most banks, including OCBC, had resumed normal operations. In Indonesia, the Japanese occupation authorities closed OCBC's branches in Sumatra. During the war, the bank moved its head office to Bombay, India and only re-registered back in Singapore after the war ended. OCBC's branch in Xiamen survived the war and in the 1950s, OCBC was one of only four foreign banks to have branches in China.
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