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As a reference, Hong Kong’s economy grew over 150 times in U.S. dollar terms from 1965 to 2019 and GDP per capita surged nearly 100-fold. For much of this period, Hang Seng Bank was the dominant banking player for the non-international grass root segment – mom-and-pop money alongside small businesses and your neighborhood hawkers or stallholders.

Last Ones? Or No...

Time will tell if Hong Kongers' roots in the banking scene will truly be reduced to ashes or if it will live to see another day. Or maybe there will be new homegrown entrants. 

Enter virtual banks We Lab and SC Digital which have, amongst its diversified global investors, entities backed by billionaire dubbed «Superman» Li Ka-Shing and his son Richard Li, respectively. The former is even a local Hong Kong fintech firm founded by Simon Loong and Kelly Wong in January 2013.

The Rest

But for the remaining banks that offloaded family ownership in the last two decades, here they are:

Dao Heng Bank – Dao Heng was the first of the region’s local entrepreneur banks to turn over ownership in the 21st century. Founded in 1921's Hong Kong – just a decade after the fall of the Qing Dynasty – the bank had exchanged hands and experienced rich transformations before landing in DBS made a $41.9 billion purchase of a 71.3 percent stake in 2001.

It has deep roots with the Malay Chinese and Southeast Asia business community fused with early elements of internationalism: through the 1980s and 1990s, its expansion included a local merger with Hong Kong's Hang Lung Bank and an acquisition of London's Benchmark Bank Plc. 

Wing Lung Bank – In 1933, Wu Yee Sun founded Wing Lung Bank in British Hong Kong and offered services across money exchange, remittances, deposits alongside the trading of stocks, gold bullion and Chinese government bonds. Shenzhen’s China Merchants acquired the bank through a HK$19.3 billion sale of a 53 percent stake in 2008.

Chong Hing Bank – Chiuchow immigrant Liu Po-Shan came to Hong Kong in 1942 in the midst of a Japanese invasion and entered the property business before establishing Chong Hing Bank in 1948. The bank was acquired by Guangzhou’s government investment arm Yue Xiu in 2013 through a HK$11.6 billion sale of a 75 percent stake.

Wing Hang Bank – In 1937, Wing Hang was founded by Y.K. Fung in then nationalist-ruled Canton and also expanded to include a Macau subsidiary, Banco Weng Hang, four years later. In 2014, Wing Hang Bank was acquired by Singapore’s OCBC in a HK$38.4 billion buyout.