Russo-Asiatic Bank
{{Short description|International bank (1910–1917)}}
{{Redirect-distinguish|Banque du Nord|Northern Bank}}
File:351. St. Petersburg. Azov Commercial Bank.jpg]]
The Russo-Asiatic Bank ({{langx|ru|Русско-Азиатский банк}}, {{langx|fr|Banque russo-asiatique}}, Traditional Chinese: 俄亞銀行) was a major Russian bank between 1910 and 1917. It was formed in 1910 through the merger of the Russo-Chinese Bank, with activities in Russia, China and Central Asia, and the Banque du Nord ("Northern Bank", {{langx|ru|Северный банк}}), a large domestic Russian bank. By 1914, it was Russia's largest private-sector bank by total assets.{{citation |title=From Revolution to Dissolution: The Quai d'Orsay, the Banque Russo-Asiatique, and the Chinese Eastern Railway, 1917-1926 |author=Michael Jabara Carley |journal=The International History Review |volume=12:4 |date=November 1990 |issue=4 |pages=721–761 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |jstor=40106277 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40106277}}{{rp|722}} In late 1917 following the Russian Revolution, like all other commercial banks in Russia, its Russian operations were absorbed into the State Bank with no compensation to its shareholders.{{cite book |chapter-url=https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c4154/c4154.pdf |title=Money, Financial Flows, and Credit in the Soviet Union |author=George Garvy |publisher=National Bureau of Economic Research |year=1977 |chapter=The Origins and Evolution of the Soviet Banking System: An Historical Perspective}} Its activities in Europe and China lingered for a while, but were eventually liquidated in 1926.{{R|MJC|page=758}}
Banque du Nord
File:Реклама Северного банка, 1907.jpg
The Banque du Nord was created by France's Société Générale bank in 1901 as a fully-owned subsidiary to develop a retail and commercial banking activity in Russia in the context of increasingly close Franco-Russian Alliance. By 1909 it had about fifty branches in Russia, including particularly active ones in Kharkiv to finance the industrial concern known as the Omnium ({{langx|fr|Société générale de l'industrie minière & métallurgique en Russie}}), and Baku to finance the booming local oil industry.{{cite conference |book-title=Les Français dans la vie économique russe : Nouvelles sources et approches (1815-1917) |editor1=Annie Charon |editor2=Bruno Delmas |editor3=Armelle Le Goff |title=De l'industrie à la banque, la Société générale en Russie (1870-1900) |author=Jean-François Belhoste |pages=361–379 |url=https://books.openedition.org/enc/1298?lang=en |publisher=Publications de l’École nationale des chartes |location=Paris |date=2011}}
By 1907, in addition to the head office in Saint Petersburg it had branches in Baku, Belgorod, Borisoglebsk, Buturlinovka, Gomel, Kazan, Kharkiv, Kozlov (now Michurinsk), Liepāja, Livny, Minsk, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod (during fair), Novocherkassk, Oryol, Petrovsk-Port (now Makhachkala), Riga, Rostov-on-Don, Rybinsk, Stary Oskol, Tver, Voronezh, Yefremov, Yekaterinburg, and Yelets.{{citation |title=Весь Петербург на 1907 год. ("All Petersburg in 1907: Address and Reference Book of St. Petersburg") |publisher=A.S. Suvorin |date=1908 |url=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/%D0%A0%D0%B5%D0%BA%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%B0_%D0%A1%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE_%D0%B1%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%BA%D0%B0%2C_1907.jpg}}
Russo-Asiatic Bank
File:Акция Русско-Азиатскиого банка.jpg
File:Реклама Русско-Азиатского банка, 1916.jpg
In 1910, the Russo-Chinese Bank and Banque du Nord merged to form the Russo-Asiatic Bank.{{cite book |last1=Ji |first1=Zhaojin |title=A History of Modern Shanghai Banking: The rise and decline of China's finance capitalism. Russo-Chinese Bank and Russo-Asiatic Bank |date=2003 |publisher=M. E. Sharpe |location=Armonk, New York |isbn=0-7656-1002-7 |pages=70–72 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aesatCvz-PgC&pg=PA70}}{{cite journal |last1=Watson |first1=D.R. |title=The Rise and Fall of the Russo-Asiatic Bank. Problems of a Russian Enterprise with French Shareholders, 1910-26 |journal=European History Quarterly |date=January 1993 |volume=23 |pages=39–49 |doi=10.1177/026569149302300102|s2cid=144169965 }} Former French diplomat Maurice Verstraëte, who had managed the Banque du Nord since its creation, became the chief executive of the merged entity.{{cite web|url=https://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/index2.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fobsfr.ru%2Ffileadmin%2Freports%2F2014%2FMaurice_Verstraete__un_banquier_francais_en_Russie_au_debut_du_xxe_siecle__par_Anna_Kraatz.pdf%2Findex.html#federation=archive.wikiwix.com |title=Maurice Verstraëte, un banquier français en Russie au début du XXe siècle|website=Obsfr.ru |author=Anna Kraatz}} By 1914 it was the largest Russian bank with 672 million rubles in total assets, well ahead of the Saint Petersburg International Commercial Bank which held 488 million rubles.{{cite conference|book-title=Comparative Imperiology |editor=Kimitaka Matsuzato |date=January 2013 |title=The Anatomy and Pathology of Empire: Three Balance Sheets of Russian and Soviet Banks |author=Kazuhiko Yago |pages=61–86 |url=https://src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/coe21/publish/no22_ses/03yago.pdf}}
By 1916 it had 105 branches:{{citation |title=Весь Петербург на 1916 год. ("All Petersburg in 1916: Address and Reference Book of St. Petersburg") |publisher=A.S. Suvorin |date=1916}} :File:Реклама Русско-Азиатского банка, 1916.jpg
- 54 in the European and Caucasian part of the Russian Empire: Armavir, Astrakhan, Baku, Balashov, Batumi, Bezhetsk, Borisoglebsk, Buturlinovka, Chișinău, Derbent, Gomel, Kazan, Kharkiv, Kherson, Klintsy, Kozlov (now Michurinsk), Krasnoufimsk, Kronstadt, Kuznetsk, Liepāja, Mariupol, Minsk, Moscow, Nikolayevsk, Nizhny Novgorod (during fair), Novocherkassk, Novorossiysk, Novozybkov, Odessa, Oryol, Penza, Petrovsk-Port (now Makhachkala), Prokhladny Station, Pokrovskaya Sloboda (now Engels), Pryluky, Riga, Roslavl, Rostov-on-Don, Rybinsk, Samara, Saratov, Sochi, Stary Oskol, Tuapse, Tver, Vilnius, Vitebsk, Vladikavkaz, Voronezh, Yefremov, Yekaterinburg, Yekaterinodar (now Krasnodar), Yelets, and Yeysk;
- 31 in Russian Turkestan, Siberia and the Russian Far East: Achinsk, Andijan, Ashgabat, Barnaul, Biysk, Blagoveshchensk, Bukhara, Chita, Irkutsk, Kerki, Khabarovsk, Kokand, Krasnoyarsk, Margilan, Mary, Minusinsk, Namangan, Nikolayevsk-on-Amur, Novonikolayevsk (now Novosibirsk), Novy Urgench, Omsk, Samarkand, Semipalatinsk, Sretensk, Tashkent, Troitskosavsk (now Kyakhta), Verkhneudinsk (now Ulan-Ude), Ust-Charyshskaya Pristan, Verniy (now Almaty), Vladivostok, and Yakutsk;
- 14 in China: Beijing, Chefoo (now Yantai), Chuguchak (now Tacheng), Dalian, Ghulja (now Yining), Hailar, Hankou (now part of Wuhan), Harbin, Hong Kong, Kashgar, Kuanchengtze (part of Changchun), Newchwang (now Yingkou), Shanghai, and Tianjin;
- and 6 in Bombay, Colombo, Karachi, London, Paris, and Yokohama.
In November 1917, the new Soviet government nationalized all Russian banks, including the Russo-Asiatic Bank. This generated considerable legal uncertainty.{{cite book |last1=Share |first1=Michael B. |title=Where Empires Collided: Russian and Soviet Relations with Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macao |date=2007 |publisher=Chinese University Press |isbn=9789629963064 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hG6j9NH6x8AC&q=russo-asiatic+bank+1926&pg=PA301 |accessdate=17 August 2019 |language=en}} The bank was technically the sole owner of the strategically important Chinese Eastern Railway,{{R|MJC|page=722}} but actually held the shares as a proxy for the Russian government which had provided the capital for the railway's construction. The share certificates of the railway were deposited at the Russo-Asiatic Bank in Saint Petersburg, and thus inaccessible following the Bolshevik takeover.{{R|MJC|page=723}} As a consequence, various powers claimed rights to ownership of the railway, which was the bank's foremost non-Russian asset, and the resulting confusion lasted for a number of years. In early 1918, the Chinese government, then under dominant Japanese influence, was inclined to seize the China Eastern Railway and also to stop paying Russia's share of the Boxer Indemnity for which the Russo-Asiatic Bank was the collecting agent.{{R|MJC|pages=723, 730}}
In terms of governance, the bank's board had always met in Paris but its management board ({{langx|ru|правление}}) was located in Russia.{{R|MJC|page=723}} French nationals initially held three-quarters of the bank's equity capital,{{R|MJC|page=725}} but could not properly exercise their ownership rights as the bank was unable to hold a proper annual general meeting after 1917.{{R|MJC|page=740}} The chairman of the management board, prominent Russian businessman Aleksei Putilov, fled Russia in November 1917, first to Manchuria, then to Shanghai and later on to Paris, where he intrigued to retain control of the bank's operations. The French government at times supported Putilov, and at other times encouraged his rivals for control of the bank's assets, with no legal clarity as to who ultimately had management rights over the bank's non-Russian operations, and also uncertainty on whether the bank might ultimately reclaim its Russian assets subject to the outcome of the Russian Civil War in which the bank kept financing various anti-Bolshevik factions.{{R|MJC|pages=730-731}} Putilov, in turn, negotiated with Japanese and American financiers to gain autonomy from his French supporters.{{R|MJC|page=731}} Meanwhile, the bank had to issue new equity capital, in large part to exiled Russian subscribers, which added further confusion to its ownership and governance.{{R|MJC|page=732}}
In 1919, France for a while supported plans by Russian financier Karol Jaroszyński to shore up the bank's capital in coordination with the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas (BPPB) and Société Générale, backing Alexander Kolchak's Russian State and its Russian Army's advance in the Urals and towards the Volga. The effort floundered after Kolchak's troops were beaten on the Red Army's Eastern Front in the summer of 1919.{{R|MJC|pages=733-734}} Another restructuring plan led by another Russian émigré financier, Procopy Petrovich Batolin, against Putilov and his French allies, similarly failed to gain traction in late 1919 and 1920 as the BPPB and Société Générale gradually lost interest.{{R|MJC|pages=739-740}}
In 1921 and 1922, Putilov ended up negotiating in secret with agents of the Soviet government including Leonid Krasin to recover at least some of its Russian property assets.{{R|MJC|pages=743-744}} By then, the French government was starting to consider resuming some relations with the Soviet government, though that remained a highly contentious matter of French domestic politics. In May 1924, the Chinese government reached an agreement with the Soviet government that provided for Chinese recognition of the latter and a provisional regime of management of the China Eastern Railway by the Soviet Union, putting a final end on the Russo-Asiatic Bank's claims to its ownership.{{R|MJC|page=751}} On {{date|1924/10/28}}, following the Cartel des Gauches's electoral victory in May, France eventually recognized the Soviet Union as well, and Krasin became its ambassador in Paris.{{R|MJC|page=752}} Continuous rivalry among Russian factions, including between Putilov and Batolin, led to the failure in April 1926 of a last-ditch effort to restructure what remained of the Russo-Asiatic Bank.{{R|MJC|page=755}} It was eventually placed under insolvency protection in Paris on {{date|1926/09/27}}.
Buildings
{{For|the bank's branches inherited from the Russo-Chinese Bank, including those in China|Russo-Chinese Bank}}
The bank's headquarters building in Saint Petersburg, on Nevsky Prospect 62, was reconstructed in 1896-1898 for the {{ill|Saint-Petersburg-Azov Commercial Bank|ru|Санкт-Петербургско-Азовский коммерческий банк}} on a design by architect {{ill|Boris Girshovich|ru|Гиршович, Борис Ионович}}. The Banque du Nord acquired it from the ailing Azov Commercial Bank in 1901, and in 1910 it became the seat of the Russo-Asiatic Bank.{{cite web |website=Youtube |title=Русско-Азиатский банк / Russian-Asian Bank 1895-1914 |author=Nigel Fowler Sutton |date=January 2020 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxwM-XCdI34}}
Its branch office in Paris was initially at 2, rue Le Peletier, where the Russo-Chinese was already established; it relocated around 1917 to the former seat of the Banque Française pour le Commerce et l'Industrie at 9, rue Boudreau.{{cite web |website=Data for Financial History |title=Banque Russo-Asiatique |url=https://dfih.fr/issuers/3392/locations }}
File:Здание Русско-Азиатского банка, 1914.jpg|Headquarters of the Banque du Nord and then of the Russo-Asiatic Bank in Saint Petersburg, 1914
File:Spb 06-2012 Nevsky various 01.jpg|Same building in 2012, hosting a Zara outlet
File:Гомель. Советская 9. Русско-Азиатский банк коммерческого кредита 05.JPG|Former branch building in Gomel, 2012
File:Kharkiv - Sumska 1 thermometer.jpg|Former branch building in Kharkiv with giant thermometer installation, 2018
File:Комсомольская, 57.jpg|Former branch building in Stary Oskol, 2007
File:Плехановская 20 (русско-азиатский банк).jpg|Branch building in Voronezh (left), 1910s
File:Миллера д. 1, Владикавказ.jpg|{{ill|Russo-Asiatic Bank building (Vladikavkaz){{!}}Former branch building|ru|Здание Русско-Азиатского банка (Владикавказ)}} in Vladikavkaz, 2020
File:Banque du nord. Bacou.jpg|Northern Bank building on Taghiyev Street, Baku, completed in 1905
File:Tağıyev küçəsindəki tarixi bank binası.jpg|Same building in 2018, the central Baku branch of International Bank of Azerbaijan
File:Astrakhan puppet theatre.jpg|Former branch building in Astrakhan, repurposed as {{ill|Astrakhan Puppet Theater|ru|Астраханский государственный театр кукол}}, 2018
File:Weiner street 24, Yekaterinburg (1).jpg|Former branch building in Yekaterinburg, 2019
File:Здание Русско-Китайского банка 001.jpg|Branch building in Novosibirsk, 1910s
File:Krasny Avenue,3.jpg|Same building in 2013
File:Якутско Азиатский банк улица Кирова.jpg|Former branch building in Yakutsk, 2021
File:La Banque du LoA(Yokohama) 01.jpg|Former branch building in Yokohama, 2016
Banknotes
Like other foreign banks in China at the time, the Russo-Asiatic Bank issued paper currency in the concessions where it had established branch offices, as well as in Chinese Turkestan under Yang Zengxin's rule. It also issued rubles for anti-Bolshevik forces during the Russian Civil War.
File:50 Dollars. Russian-Asian Bank. Overprint with Harbin. CINS0465o.jpg|50 dollars, Harbin (Russo-Chinese Bank, stamped Russo-Asiatic Bank presumably in 1910)
File:10 Mexican Dollars. Russo-Asiatic Bank. 1914. CINS0492o.jpg|10 Mexican dollars, Shanghai (1914)
File:10 Dollars. Russo-Asiatic Bank. 1914. CINS0487o.jpg|10 dollars local currency, Shanghai (1914)
File:100 Dollars. Russo-Asiatic Bank. 1914. CINS0489r.jpg|100 dollars local currency, Shanghai (1914)
File:1 Gold Candareen. Russo-Asiatic Bank. CINS0479r.jpg|1 gold candareen, Ghulja/Chuguchak/Kashgar (1910s)
File:1 Gold Candareen. Russo-Asiatic Bank. CINS0479o.jpg|1 gold candareen, Ghulja/Chuguchak/Kashgar (1910s)
File:2 Gold Candareens. Russo-Asiatic Bank. obv.jpg|2 gold candareens, Ghulja/Chuguchak/Kashgar (1917)
File:2 Gold Candareens. Russo-Asiatic Bank. rev.jpg|2 gold candareens, Ghulja/Chuguchak/Kashgar (1917)
File:1 Gold Mace. Russo-Asiatic Bank. obv.jpg|1 gold mace, or 10 candareens, Ghulja/Chuguchak/Kashgar (1917)
File:1 Gold Mace. Russo-Asiatic Bank. rev.jpg|1 gold mace, Ghulja/Chuguchak/Kashgar (1917)
File:5 Gold Mace. Russo-Asiatic Bank. 1917 obv.jpg|5 gold maces, Ghulja/Chuguchak/Kashgar (1917)
File:5 Gold Mace. Russo-Asiatic Bank. 1917 rev.jpg|5 gold maces, Ghulja/Chuguchak/Kashgar (1917)
File:1 Gold Tael. Russo-Asiatic Bank. CINS0483r.jpg|1 gold tael, or 10 maces, Ghulja/Chuguchak/Kashgar (1910s)
File:1 Gold Tael. Russo-Asiatic Bank. CINS0483o.jpg|1 gold tael, Ghulja/Chuguchak/Kashgar (1910s)
File:Russia-Russian-Asian Bank-Banknote-1-Obverse.png|1 ruble, Harbin (1917)
File:CHI-S475a-Russo-Asiatic Bank-3 Rubles (1917).jpg|3 rubles, Harbin (1917)
See also
References
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Category:Companies based in Saint Petersburg
Category:Defunct banks of Russia
Category:Defunct banks of China
Category:Defunct banks of Hong Kong
Category:Banks disestablished in 1926
Category:Banks established in 1910
Category:China–Russia relations