Japanese colonial era
Following the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910 and full annexation, the Bank of Korea was renamed the Bank of Chōsen by Japanese law in March 1911. The bank remained a joint-stock company owned by a number of Japanese banks and companies, with a board appointed by the Governor-General of Chōsen. Its monetary role was modelled on that of the Bank of Japan, with the key difference that it was allowed to use BOJ banknotes as currency reserve alongside gold and silver. It was responsible for issuing currency in Korea, regulated domestic prices, serviced international trade. Its banknotes had legal tender status in Korea and also in the Kwantung Leased Territory and the South Manchuria Railway Zone; they could be exchanged one-to-one with those of the Bank of Japan.
The total amount of the Bank of Chōsen's banknotes increased from 13.5 million yen at end-1909 to 20 million at end-1910 and 28.6 million in April 1912, then declined to 22.9 million by end-1914 and rose again to 34 million (end-1915), 47 million (end-1916) and 68 million (end-1917). This expansion reflected both economic growth in Korea and the bank's expansion into Northeast China and beyond. The bank opened branches and offices in Mukden (July 1913), Dalian (August 1913), Changchun (September 1913), Siping (February 1914), Kaiyuan (September 1915), Harbin (July 1916), Yingkou (September 1916), Fujiadian (December 1916), Longjingzun (March 1917), Jilin (June 1917), Qingdao (October 1917), Zhengjiatun (March 1918), Shanghai (April 1918), Manzhouli (September 1918), and Qiqihar (November 1918). In June 1916, the Bank of Chōsen started lending directly to the Fengtian government. In December 1917, it took over Manchurian operations of the Yokohama Specie Bank, including its issuance privilege and branches in Lüshun, Liaoyang, Tieling and Andong, while acting as a fiscal agent for the Japanese government in the Kwantung Leased Territory. The YSB's banknotes were withdrawn and replaced with notes of the Bank of Chōsen which already circulated widely in Manchuria, while the YSB retained activity in the territory as a commercial bank. The Bank of Chōsen also expanded its gold purchasing operations into Manchuria, opening an assaying office at its branch in Changchun that complemented the ones it had inherited from Dai-Ichi Bank in Seoul, Pyongyang and Wonsan. The Bank of Chōsen thus became the dominant supplier of gold to Japan's mint in Osaka, representing between 27 and 57 percent of its gold supply between 1910 and 1917. The branches in Manzhouli and Qiqihar were created in the context of the Japanese intervention in Siberia, during which the Bank of Chōsen also temporarily established offices in Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, and other outposts occupied by the Japanese army; the Vladivostok branch remained in activity until 1931. By 1919, the bank had 18 branches in Manchuria, where its operations were more profitable than in Korea where it only had 10 branches. Following the Japanese financial downturn of 1920, however, the bank pared down its Manchurian lending and note issuance, leading to calls by Japanese businessmen in Manchuria for the establishment of a separate local bank of issue.[5]
In the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake, the Bank of Chōsen's branch in Tokyo was destroyed by fire and the bank suffered heavy losses, following which the Japanese finance ministry and Bank of Japan supported it with large-scale long-term lending. In February 1924, new legislation deprived the Governor-General of Chōsen of his prior role in the governance of the bank, which came under the sole supervision of the Ministry of Finance. In May 1924, the bank's head office and senior leadership relocated to Tokyo. The bank's structure was reorganized with a director in Seoul (Keijō) overseeing operations in Korea, another one in Dalian (Dairen) overseeing those in Manchuria, and the leadership in Tokyo overseeing all other foreign operations (e.g. in China) together with those in Mainland Japan.
By 1929, the Bank of Chōsen had 19 offices outside of Japan and its colonies, the second-largest such network among all Japanese banks, surpassed only by the Yokohama Specie Bank.[6] In Japan it had branches in Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, and Shimonoseki.
In the mid-1930s, the Bank of Chōsen's notes still circulated widely in Manchuria, even after the creation of the Central Bank of Manchou in 1932. Eventually, the Bank of Chōsen created a 50-50 joint venture with the Manchukuo government, the Manchurian Industrial Bank, fully guaranteed by the government and which on 1936/01/01 took over all Manchurian branches of the Bank of Chōsen as well as those of the Manchurian Bank and Shoryu Bank, so sixty branches in total. While it retreated from direct activity in Manchuria, the Bank of Chōsen expanded into North China in May 1936 by establishing a central bank for the East Hebei Autonomous Government, known as the Chi Tung Bank. In 1937 as the Second Sino-Japanese War started, the Bank of Chōsen became the financial agent of the invading Japanese Army and established offices in the major cities it captured (and superseding the Chi Tung Bank in East Hebei).
As a consequence of the conscription of Japanese men, the share of Koreans in the Bank of Chōsen's workforce rose steadily, from 16 percent in 1928 to 22 percent in 1939, 33 percent (455 Korean staff) by March 1945, and 35 to 40 percent by the war's end in August 1945.
