Bank of Taiwan

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For the SBL basketball team, see Bank of Taiwan (basketball)

Bank of Taiwan^[1]

Type	State-owned
Founded	1897
Headquarters	Taipei, Taiwan
Key people	Tsai Jer-Shyong, Chairman
Industry	Banking
Products	Financial Services
Revenue	▼NTD 10.9 billion (2006)
Total assets	▼NTD 2.70 trillion (2006)
Employees	6,654 (2007)
Website	www.bot.com.tw [1]
Issuer of banknotes (1899-2000), De facto Central Bank (1949-1961)

The Bank of Taiwan (BOT, traditional Chinese: 臺灣銀行; pinyin: Táiwān Yínháng) is a government-owned bank in Taipei City, Taiwan. The Bank of Taiwan was first established as central bank of Taiwan during the Japanese rule. In order to assist the economic development, "Bank Act of Taiwan" was promulgated in 1897 and the Bank of Taiwan was established in 1899 to encourage Japanese private sectors, including Mitsubishi and the Mitsui Group, to invest in Taiwan. There was extensive cooperation between Nippon Kangyo Bank and Bank of Taiwan in Taiwan island. A banking crisis in 1927 was relieved with the assistance from Bank of Japan. During Japan's military expansion, branches were extended into other parts of Asia where the empire had strong influences, including China and Southeast Asia.

Bank of Taiwan

After the Japanese surrender in 1945, the ROC government took over the Bank of Taiwan and issued the old Taiwan dollars, also known as Taiwan Nationalist Yuan, through the Bank of Taiwan. Later in 1949, the Bank of Taiwan issued the New Taiwan dollar to curb the severe deflation of the value of old Taiwan dollars. After the loss of the mainland in the Chinese Civil War by the Kuomintang and its subsequent retreat to Taiwan, the Bank of Taiwan took on a more central role as the central bank of the ROC until the Central Bank of China was reestablished in 1961. The Bank of Taiwan was governed under the Taiwan Provincial Government until 1998 when governance was transferred to the ROC Finance Ministry. In 2001, the duty of issuing New Taiwan dollars was transferred to the Central Bank of China.

The Bank of Taiwan currently operates a total of 169 domestic branches as well as branches in Mainland China and Hong Kong. Branches have also been established overseas in New York, Los Angeles, London, Singapore, Tokyo and South Africa.

In July 2007, the Bank of Taiwan merged with the Central Trust of China (中央信託局) as part of a government financial reform package. The bank continues to operate as an independent company taking over some aspects of the Trust's banking business. In January 2008, the Bank became part of the Taiwan Financial Holding Group (臺灣金融控股公司), which also contains the Land Bank of Taiwan, The Export-Import Bank of China, BankTaiwan Securities and BankTaiwan Life Insurance.